An Army soldier covers an injured comrade as a helicopter lands to evacuate the wounded after their armored vehicle hit an improvised explosive device in the Tangi Valley of Afghanistan’s Wardak Province in 2009.Credit:AP
But Trump’s election defeat meant he would not fulfil his goal to become the leader who ended the longest war in American history.
Instead - if he carries out the plan he outlined in the White House on Thursday (AEST) - Joe Biden will go down in history as theUS president who ended the 20-year war in Afghanistan.
It’s a reminder that,for all their differences in style,there is plenty of continuity between the Biden and Trump administrations on foreign policy. Politics moves in cycles and right now military interventionism is out of fashion in the US. The political calculus is that Americans are weary of overseas entanglements and want their country’s leaders to focus on problems at home.
A tattoo on the back of US Army Sergeant James Wilkes seen through his torn shirt in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province in 2010.Credit:AP
“We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create the ideal conditions for our withdrawal,expecting a different result,” Biden said in a speech in the Treaty Room,the same location where George W Bush announced the beginning of the war in 2001.
“I am now the fourth American president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan. Two Republicans. Two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility to a fifth.”