Surprise A’stan visit

Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Thursday to sell Afghan leaders and a wary public on President Biden’s decision to pull out all remaining American troops by Sept. 11.

Speaking to reporters while standing alongside Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Blinken said of the trip, “I wanted to demonstrate with my visit the ongoing commitment of the United States to the Islamic Republic and the people of Afghanistan.”

Blinken traveled to Afghanistan from Brussels, Belgium, where he and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin briefed NATO officials on the decision.

The trip comes one day after Biden delivered a speech from the White House explaining his decision to withdraw by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Biden, Blinken and Austin have all provided similar arguments in defense of the decision, primarily focused on the fact that the US had achieved its goal of bringing Osama bin Laden to justice and destroying al Qaeda, his terror network.

Critics of the move have cautioned that it could lead to the creation of a new ISIS, as President Barack Obama’s decision to withdraw from Iraq did in 2011.

Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Jack Reed (D-RI) expressed his concerns.

“It’s a very difficult decision by the president. I think it was shaped by a number of factors. I think the agreement itself really gave the Taliban the green light that after May 1st we couldn’t be there any longer. So we inherited that [from the Trump administration],” Reed said.

When pressed on whether he supported Biden’s move, Reed declined to say.