Biden defends Afghanistan withdrawal that resulted in disaster and insists ‘historical past’ will show he was proper
President Joe Biden pushed that the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a foreign policy victory as he gave a closing address from the State Department Monday afternoon.
The erratic pullout from Afghanistan in August 2021 plummeted Biden’s poll numbers for the rest of his term.
Critics – including President-elect Donald Trump – said it emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine six months later.
‘There is nothing – I can tell you from my conversations with both Xi and Putin – nothing that our adversaries and competitors – like Russia and China – would like more than seeing us continue to be tied down in Afghanistan for another decade,’ Biden argued Monday.
‘For all those reasons, ending the war was the right thing to do,’ the president said. ‘And I believe history will reflect that.’
He boasted to the crowd – made up of Cabinet members and State Department officials – that he would be the ‘first president in decades who’s not leaving a war in Afghanistan to his successor.’
The president noted that 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was captured during the ‘Obama-Biden administration,’ which meant the ‘primary objective of the war had been accomplished.’
‘In my view it was time to end the war and bring our troops home. And we did,’ Biden said.
President Joe Biden argued that the withdrawal from Afghanistan during his first year in office should be considered a foreign policy victory. He gave a final foreign policy address Monday afternoon from the State Department
A U.S. Marine grabs an infant from the crowd below during the frantic U.S. pullout of Afghanistan in August of 2011. The withdrawal tanked President Joe Biden’s approval numbers for the rest of his term
He pointed out that he carried around a card with him daily that listed the number of military dead from the war.
‘We grieve all 2,461 Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice in the longest war in American history. And I grieve those brave service members whose lives were lost during the withdrawal,’ the president also said.
Thirteen U.S. servicemembers were killed on August 26, 2021, when a suicide bomber sent off an explosion outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport where fleeing Afghans had gathered.
Beyond losing American military personnel, Biden argued it was a good decision because the war was costing ‘hundreds of millions of dollars a day.’
‘Remember critics said if we ended the war it would damage our alliances and create threats to our homeland of foreign-directed terrorism out of a safe haven in Afghanistan,’ Biden said. ‘Neither has occurred.’
The New Orleans New Year’s Day terror attack perpetrator was inspired by ISIS – not Al Qaeda, bin Laden’s group that operated out of Afghanistan and was behind 9/11.
The war in Afghanistan started after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in New York, Washington, D.C. and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The pullout occurred in August 2021 – ahead of the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
President Joe Biden (left) reacts to applause as he’s greeted by State Department and other government officials at the State Department’s D.C. headquarters alongside Secretary of State Antony Blinken (right)
More broadly, Biden boasted Monday that some of America’s top enemies – namely Russia and Iran – were weakened during four years of the Democrat’s foreign policy.
‘Today I can report to the American people our adversaries are weaker than where we came in this job four years ago,’ Biden said.
‘Just consider Russia,’ he continued. ‘Putin invaded Ukraine. He thought he’d conquer Kyiv in a matter of days. The truth is, since that war began, I’m the only one that stood in the center of Kyiv, not him.’
Biden made a surprise trip to the Ukrainian capital in February 2023.
During his State Department remarks he chuckled about it being a ‘long train ride.’
I’m the only commander-in-chief that’s been to a war zone not controlled by U.S. forces,’ he boasted.
‘All told, Iran’s been weaker than it’s been in decades,’ Biden also bragged.
He talked about how the country’s air defenses were in ‘shambles’ and how Hezbollah, a top Iranian proxy was ‘badly wounded.’
Biden said he couldn’t take full credit for Iran’s weakening.
‘They did plenty of damage all by themselves. But Israel did plenty of damage to Iran and its proxies. But there’s no question that our actions contributed significantly and now major authoritarian states are aligning more closely with one another – Iran, Russia, China, North Korea – but that’s more out of weakness than out of strength,’ Biden said.
‘So as the new administration begins, the United States is in a fundamentally stronger position with respect to these countries than they were four years ago,’ he said.
Biden leaves office in just one week, with Trump being sworn-in at noon on January 20.
With Trump will come an ‘America first’ foreign policy agenda – as the Republican has viewed multilateral coalitions like the United Nations and NATO skeptically.
Biden, as well as Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who briefed the press at the White House earlier Monday, encouraged government foreign policy professionals to stay in their jobs.
‘I put together one of the most competent foreign policy teams, I would argue, in American history,’ the outgoing 82-year-old president said.
