President Biden on Thursday laid down a broad marker for America’s troubled military mission in Afghanistan, virtually ruling out a U.S. troop presence beyond this year while suggesting he’s prepared to brush aside the May 1 withdrawal deadline put in place by President Trump.
At his first press conference since taking office, Mr. Biden offered his most detailed comments to date about his plan to eventually wind down the war in Afghanistan, now the longest conflict in U.S. history and one that the president during his campaign vowed to bring to a close.
But Mr. Biden was light on specifics, offering no detailed timetable and even leaving himself wiggle room on the final withdrawal date, with Mr. Trump’s deadline now just a little more than a month away.
“It’s going to be hard to meet the May 1 deadline just in terms of tactical reasons. It’s hard to get those troops out,” Mr. Biden said. “It is not my intention to stay there for a long time, but the question is how and in what circumstances” the U.S. exits the country.
The administration faces a delicate balancing act. U.S. voters are clearly tired of the 20-year mission, but military experts say the U.S.-backed government in Kabul is still to weak to hold off the Taliban insurgency without foreign help.
“We are not staying a long time,” Mr. Biden continued. “We will leave. The question is when we leave.”
Pressed on the timeline, Mr. Biden said he “can’t picture” U.S. forces still being in the country by next year.
There are currently about 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, along with several thousand NATO and allied troops. The U.S. forces are supposed to withdraw by May 1 under a deal Mr. Trump struck with the Taliban in early 2020, but most observers believe the Taliban has failed to live up to its promises under the agreement, such as cutting off all ties with terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and reducing violence across the country.
Taliban leaders have already warned Washington that a delay in the May 1 timeline could mean the collapse of the entire deal, and a possible return to direct attacks on American forces. Military leaders and foreign policy analysts fear a major uptick in insurgent violence that could destabilize the entire country.
Afghanistan may be the president’s most pressing foreign policy headache, but it is not the only one. Mr. Biden faced questions Thursday about new North Korean missile tests, talks with Central American countries on the current immigration crisis, and the challenge of dealing with China.
On North Korea, Mr. Biden reversed course after just days ago laughing off questions about recent Pyongyang’s recent missile launches. The administration has dismissed last weekend’s launches as little more than “normal military activity” by the regime, but the president said that the more recent tests — which saw North Korea fire two ballistic missiles into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan early Wednesday — violated United Nations resolutions and could demand a much tougher response.
“We are consulting with our allies and partners and there will be a response if they choose to escalate,” Mr. Biden said of North Korea.
The U.N. Security Council’s North Korea sanctions committee will meet Friday at the request of the United States, the Reuters news agency reported Thursday.
The White House is readying a diplomatic push aimed at securing a permanent end to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Administration officials said earlier this week that they are in contact with former Trump administration diplomats to gain insights into Pyongyang’s thinking. Mr. Trump held three in-person summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his tenure, but those meetings failed to produce a denuclearization deal.
On China, Mr. Biden vowed that the U.S. will hold Communist Party leaders accountable for what he described as grave human-rights abuses, including the treatment of minority Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang province and a harsh crackdown on protesters in Hong Kong.
More broadly, the president said he is committed to ensuring that Beijing does not achieve its goal of supplanting the U.S. as the globe’s preeminent superpower.
“They have an overall goal to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world, and the most powerful country in the world,” Mr. Biden said. “That’s not going to happen on my watch.”
⦁ Bill Gertz contributed to this story.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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