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Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he would not apologize for ending the war in Afghanistanthat left 13 Americans dead and the Taliban in charge, during an interview with The New York Times ahead of the departure of the Biden administration.
“I’m not at all sure that the election has raised any or even a set of foreign policy issues. Most elections haven’t. But let’s put that aside: Americans don’t want us in a conflict. They don’t. We’ve gone through 20 years of having hundreds of thousands of Americans deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, understandably, when President Biden was vice president around the end of our involvement in Iraq, he as president ended the longest war in our history, Afghanistan,” he said in response to a question about the election.
The New York Times spoke with Blinken ahead of his departure from the White House and said Americans were early skeptical of Biden’s foreign policy because of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which left more than ten American soldiers dead and led to the Taliban regaining control. The interviewer asked how the “failure” in Afghanistan damaged America’s credibility.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken appears before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“First, I’m not apologizing for ending America’s longest war. This, I think, is a landmark achievement by the president. The fact that we won’t have another generation of Americans fighting and dying in Afghanistan is an important achievement in and of itself,” Blinken replied.
The Times shot back, pointing out that the Taliban had made it much harder for women in the country.
The interviewer said, “In every possible way, the way it was done and the state in which Afghanistan was left could not have been what the United States wanted.”
“There was never an easy way out of 20 years of war. I think it was a question of what we were going to do beyond withdrawal. We also had to learn lessons from Afghanistan itself,” Blinken added.
The Biden administration was hit by a push after the chaotic retreat. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan even allegedly offered to resign because of the decision, according to David Ignatius of the Washington Post.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Monday, Nov. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
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Sullivan was also reportedly concerned about going out, but ultimately said it would be challenging no matter what they did.
“You can’t end a war like Afghanistan, where you’ve built addictions and pathologies, without the end being complex and challenging,” Sullivan told a Post columnist. “The choice was: leave, and that won’t be easy, or stay forever.”
He added that “leaving Kabul freed him [United States] deal with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in ways that would have been impossible if we had stayed.”
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Ignatius reported that the withdrawal from Afghanistan “severed the early friendship” of the Biden administration’s national security team and created conflict between Sullivan and Blinken.
