Al-Qaeda mastermind’s prophecy could be coming true
:ASHIN*TON ± ± In his speech :ednesday announcing the United States’ retreat from Afghanistan, 3resident -oe %iden noted that the 11 attacks “sparked an American promise that we would µnever forget.’” :ell, apparently %iden has forgotten the epic disaster he unleashed in 2011 when he was in charge of the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq.
That catastrophic decision created a vacuum that allowed the Islamic State ± ± which at the time, CIA 'irector -ohn %rennan explained in 201 , had just “00-or-so adherents left” ± ± to regroup, reconstitute itself and build a ca- liphate the size of %ritain. They unleashed a frenzy of terror ± ± summary executions, women and children buried alive, people crucified, American journalists beheaded, and the enslavement and mass rape of In a November 201 :all Street -ournal interview, %iden admitted that the decision to withdraw all troops from Iraq “was a mistake” and claimed that as vice president he had tried to keep “a residual force” stationed there. This is revisionist nonsense. %iden was ebullient as he presided over the withdrawal of the last American troops, and even called 3resident %arack Obama from %aghdad to thank him “for giving me the chance to end this goddamn war.” In that same interview, %iden went on to criticize Trump for his decision to withdraw the small contingent of U.S. forces in Syria and not leave a residual force there. “:e don’t have to have 100,000 troops stationed anywhere,” %iden said, but “when we leave a vacuum, like he’s leaving it, it creates significant opportunities for difficulty, including what you see right now in the Middle (ast.” So, %iden admits that the complete U.S. withdrawal from Iraq was a mistake, and chastised Trump for his withdrawal from Syria. ,000), the United .ingdom ( ,000), Italy (12,000), South .orea (2 ,000), *ermany ( ,000) or -apan ( 0,000). The U.S. forces in Afghanistan are not nation-building. They are not policing the country. They are not even fighting a war. They are training, equipping and enabling Afghan forces who are fighting our enemies for us, while collecting intelligence and carrying out occasional strikes against terrorist targets. According to Stars and Stripes, last year four Americans were killed in action in Afghanistan, “making for the lowest number of U.S. combat deaths in the country in a calendar year since the war began in October 2001.” %ut that small contingent of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, together with some ,000 NATO forces, has outsized benefits ± ± preventing the Taliban from overthrowing the pro-American government and turning the country into a terrorist sanctuary again. The day before %iden announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, his administration announced that it is increasing the number of troops in *ermany ± ± reversing Trump’s decision to withdraw some 12,000 forces from that country. So, %iden is withdrawing all U.S. forces from a country where there is an active terrorist threat, but surging forces into a country where our troops have been stationed since 1 4 to prevent a Soviet tank invasion across the )ulda *ap" The Soviet Union no longer exists. The Taliban and al-Qaeda do. :orse yet, nothing terrorists do will reverse our planned exit. U.S. officials say our Afghan withdrawal “is not conditions-based” because %iden “has judged that a conditions-based approach . . . is a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever.” In other words, %iden has given the Taliban a green light to launch an assault on .abul, install a radical Islamist emirate and invite al-Qaeda to restore its lost sanctuary. 3erhaps worst of all, %iden has tied the U.S. withdrawal to the 20th anniversary of the 11 attacks ± ± turning that solemn day of remembrance into a victory celebration for the terrorists. It is a victory the enemy predicted from the start. After he was captured, 11 mastermind .halid Sheikh Mohammed told his CIA interrogator something prophetic :hile the United States may enjoy some fleeting battlefield successes, Mohammed declared, in the end “we will win because Americans don’t realize . . . we do not need to defeat you militarily we only need to fight long enough for you to defeat yourself by quitting.” Two decades after 11, -oe %iden is making .SM’s prophecy come true.