Biden Weighs Dilemma With Afghan War   02/26 06:21

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- America's longest war is approaching a crossroads.

   President Joe Biden's choices in Afghanistan boil down to this: withdraw all 
troops by May, as promised by his predecessor, and risk a resurgence of 
extremist dangers, or stay and possibly prolong the war in hopes of compelling 
the Taliban to make peace with a weak and fractured government.

   The second option may be the most likely, but officials say no decision has 
been made.

   Afghanistan presents one of the new administration's tougher and more urgent 
decisions. The U.S. public is weary of a war nearly 20 years old, but pulling 
out now could be seen as giving the Taliban too much leverage and casting a 
shadow over the sacrifices made by U.S. and coalition troops and Afghan 
civilians.

   Biden has not commented in detail on Afghanistan since taking office, but he 
has a long history with the war. In 2009 as vice president, he lost an internal 
administration debate at a crucial juncture in the war; he argued for reducing 
the U.S. military commitment to focus mainly on countering extremist groups, 
but President Barack Obama decided instead to vastly increase troop numbers to 
100,000.

   The Obama strategy failed to force the Taliban to seek peace, and by the 
time Donald Trump entered the White House in January 2017 Obama had dropped the 
troop total to about 8,500. Trump increased it by several thousand later that 
year, and after his administration reached a conditional peace deal with the 
Taliban in February 2020, he began a withdrawal, including a reduction last 
month to the current total of 2,500.

   Biden said during the 2020 campaign that he might keep a counterterrorism 
force in Afghanistan but also would "end the war responsibly" to ensure U.S. 
forces never have to return.

   "I would bring American combat troops in Afghanistan home during my first 
term," he wrote last summer in response to written questions from the Council 
on Foreign Relations, although the U.S. mission there already shifted some 
years ago from combat to advising Afghan security forces. "Any residual U.S. 
military presence in Afghanistan would be focused only on counterterrorism 
operations."

   The administration says it is studying the February 2020 so-called Doha deal 
in which the Taliban agreed to stop attacking U.S. and coalition forces and to 
start peace talks with the Kabul government, among other things, in exchange 
for a complete withdrawal of foreign troops by May 1, 2021.

   Senior U.S. officials have asserted for months that the Taliban has fallen 
short of its Doha commitments, and although the administration's review is 
ongoing, arguments for extending a troop presence beyond May 1 are considerable.

   U.S. allies in NATO have not disputed the U.S. complaint that the Taliban 
has not fulfilled it Doha commitments, nor have they called for an early troop 
withdrawal. Some appear to be preparing for a U.S. decision to stay beyond May 
1.

   The deadline, barely two months away, is itself a factor, since it will soon 
be too late to get all 10,000 U.S. and NATO troops out in an orderly way by May 
1. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said last week that he has assured U.S. 
allies and partners in Afghanistan there will be no "hasty" pullout, and that 
Washington's focus is on diplomacy.

   "Clearly, the violence is too high right now, and more progress needs to be 
made in the Afghan-led negotiations, and so I urge all parties to choose the 
path towards peace," he told reporters.

   A further hint of the administration's thinking may be its repeated 
reference to reviewing "compliance" with the Doha agreement, suggesting the 
possibility that the administration ultimately will argue that Taliban 
noncompliance makes the May 1 deadline void, or at least moveable.

   That was the central argument offered in a Feb. 3 report by the 
congressionally authorized Afghanistan Study Group, whose members included 
Joseph Dunford, the retired Marine general and former chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff, who once led U.S. forces in Afghanistan. It called for an 
immediate diplomatic push to extend the May 1 withdrawal deadline.

   "The Study Group believes that further U.S. troop withdrawals should be 
conditioned on the Taliban's demonstrated willingness and capacity to contain 
terrorist groups, on a reduction in the Taliban's violence against the Afghan 
people, and on real progress toward a compromise political settlement," the 
report said.

   A complete U.S. troop withdrawal not tied to progress in peace negotiations 
would likely lead to an end to most U.S. financial aid to Afghanistan and a 
closing of the American embassy, it argued.

   "This would be a highly risky, and even dangerous, approach that could 
foment more conflict than it resolves and create the sort of threats that 
imperil U.S. security. It would most likely result in a new chapter of civil 
war, not unlike the one that erupted in the 1990s and led to 9/11," it said, 
referring to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States that prompted a 
U.S. invasion of Afghanistan a month later.

   Stephen Biddle, a Columbia University professor who previously advised U.S. 
military officials on the war, says it probably was a mistake for the Trump 
administration to promise a full withdrawal by a specific date.

   "If it's important enough to be there at all, to be spending money at all, 
to be risking lives at all, then the point of being there is to get a 
negotiated agreement, and for that you need leverage," Biddle said. What's left 
of American leverage at this point, he said, rests with the U.S. military 
presence and the prospect of financial aid once a peace deal is done.

   "We need to husband our leverage, and that means not unilaterally 
withdrawing without a deal," he added. "If you're serious about a deal and are 
willing to do what it takes to get one, then that implies patience beyond 
April, probably."