Biden: Cannot continue cycle of military presence in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Wednesday formally announced a Sept. 11 deadline to end military involvement in Afghanistan, arguing that the 2001 terrorist attacks that led to the U.S. invasion can no longer justify staying engaged in an unwinnable war.

“We went to Afghanistan because of a horrific attack that happened 20 years ago,” Biden said. “That cannot explain why we should remain there in 2021.”

Biden outlined his decision to withdraw remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, which al-Qaida planned from Afghanistan. Biden’s plan, which U.S. officials disclosed Tuesday, means the U.S. will miss the May 1 deadline the Trump administration set last year in a deal with the Taliban.

Biden cast the decision as an overdue admission that the United States has fallen short of its goals and as a necessary reorienting of national security priorities toward more urgent threats.

Long a skeptic of the Pentagon plans for Afghanistan, Biden portrayed the decision to exit Afghanistan less as a victory than a recognition that, despite thousands of casualties and hundreds of billions of dollars expended by the United States, a stable Afghanistan has not been achieved.

“We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create the ideal conditions for our withdrawal, expecting a different result,” Biden said. “I am now the fourth American president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan. Two Republicans. Two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility to a fifth.”

“It is time to end America’s longest war. It is time for American troops to come home.”

There are at least 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, though special operations troops and other units that rotate into the country could take that number to 3,500 or higher. As the U.S. departs, almost all of the additional 8,500 troops from NATO allies and other countries now in Afghanistan are also likely to withdraw over the next five months, officials say.

At NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III were briefing allies about the U.S. plans.

Republicans on Tuesday signaled opposition to Biden’s deadline.

ANDREW HARNIK/ASSOCIATED PRESS President Joe Biden, who announced the withdrawal of the remainder of U.S. troops in Afghanistan by Sept. 11, visits Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday.