Afghanistan’s Situation Didn’t Change. American Politics Did – By Kevin Baron (Defense One) / April 13 2021
The Biden administration says it can fight terrorism in a way that its predecessors called impossible. Can it?
The Earth did not change its shape. Southwestern Asia did not change its borders. No additional terrorists laid down their arms. But suddenly we’ve resolved one of the most important reasons for keeping U.S military forces in Afghanistan?
Distance. That was among the top justifications that U.S. defense and military leaders have given — through three presidential administrations — for putting and keeping thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The argument was simple: Afghanistan is landlocked and located far from any major U.S. military bases. If U.S. leaders wanted the military to find, capture, and kill terrorists there, then U.S. forces needed jumping-off points in country and the kind of secure supply lines that come from heavy footprints. If they wanted to chase al Qaeda into Pakistan, as they did Osama bin Laden, they needed bases like the special operations lily pad at Jalalabad and the gigantic logistics hub at Bagram Air Base.
Afghanistan is not Iraq or Syria, within easy reach of Middle East bases that house tens of thousands of U.S. troops, not to mention bodies of water large enough for carrier strike groups. It is too remote for routine airstrikes on al Qaeda or in-and-out special ops missions against ISIS.
On Tuesday, a senior administration official told reporters that what had changed is the war, the threat, and the Taliban. The official argued that the United States invaded Afghanistan “to deliver justice” for the 9/11 attacks and prevent new ones on the U.S. homeland. “We believe we achieved that objective some years ago,” the official said.
