Biden is lobbied on repercussions of Afghan exit

WASHINGTON — As President Joe Biden signaled this week that he would let a May 1 deadline pass without withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, some officials are using an intelligence assessment to argue for prolonging the military mission there.

U.S. intelligence agencies have told the Biden administration that if U.S. troops leave before a power-sharing settlement is reached between the Taliban and the Afghan government, the country could fall largely under the control of the Taliban within two or three years after the withdrawal of international forces. That could open the door for al-Qaida to rebuild its strength within the country, according to U.S. officials.

The classified assessment, first prepared last year for the Trump administration but not previously disclosed, is the latest in a series of grim predictions of Afghanistan’s future that intelligence analysts have delivered throughout the twodecade-long war.

But the intelligence has landed in a changed political environment. While former President Donald Trump pushed for withdrawal of all forces even before the terms of the peace deal required it, Biden has been more cautious, saying Thursday that he does not view May 1 as a deadline he must meet, although he also said he “could not picture” troops being in the country next year.

Some senior Biden administration officials have expressed skepticism of any intelligence prediction of a resurgence of a weakened al-Qaida or of the

Islamic State group. Taliban commanders remain opposed to the Islamic State in Afghanistan, and al-Qaida, which has little current presence in the country, could regroup instead in any number of other lawless regions around the world.

A Taliban spokesperson said Friday that the group was committed to last year’s peace agreement “and wants the American side to also remain firmly committed.” If troops are not withdrawn by May 1, the spokesperson promised, the Taliban would “continue its jihad and armed struggle against foreign forces.”

Biden administration officials insisted no final decision had been made. Nevertheless, with the deadline looming, administration officials are jockeying to influence Biden and his top national security officials. While Defense Secretary Lloyd

Austin has not signaled what course of action he prefers, some Pentagon officials who believe U.S. forces should stay longer have pointed to the intelligence assessment predicting a Taliban takeover of the country.

Some military commanders and administration officials have argued that any set date for withdrawing the approximately 3,500 U.S. troops who remain, whether it is May 1 or at the end of the year, will doom the mission. The only way to preserve hard-fought gains in Afghanistan, they said, is to keep the small U.S. presence there long enough to force a lasting deal between the Taliban and Afghan government.

These officials have used the intelligence assessment to make the point that a withdrawal this year will lead to the fall of the current government, a sharp erosion of women’s rights and the return of international terrorist groups. A rush to the exit, some officials said, will only drag the United States back into Afghanistan soon after leaving — much as was the case in Iraq in 2014, three years after the Obama administration pulled troops out of that conflict.

The White House has held a series of meetings on Afghanistan, and more are to come. On Thursday, the president said he was waiting for briefings from Austin, who met recently with Afghan officials, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who conferred this week with NATO allies, for their bottom-line advice on what he should do.

The classified intelligence assessment of the Taliban largely taking control assumes that the Afghan government and the Taliban fail to reach a political agreement and that a civil war would break out after the U.S. exit.

Administration officials warned that making any intelligence estimate is challenging, that predictions are always imprecise and that various factors influence the analysis.

There is also a debate in Washington about the seriousness of the threat of a return of terrorist groups. For now, the number of al-Qaida and Islamic State militants in Afghanistan is very small, a senior U.S. official said.

Afghan security forces still rely heavily on U.S. air support to hold territory, which U.S. military leaders acknowledged this week. It is unclear whether that U.S. air power would continue if U.S. forces left Afghanistan, perhaps launched from bases in the Persian Gulf, although the Pentagon has drawn up such options for the White House.