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| • The Doha Agreement's Time-Bound Terms: The Trump administration had negotiated a deal with the Taliban that set a firm full-withdrawal date (initially May 1, 2021) and reduced U.S. troop levels down to 2,500 just before leaving office, while also releasing 5,000 Taliban prisoners. Biden argued that breaking the agreement and halting the withdrawal would mean restarting the war with the Taliban and breaking an official U.S. commitment, which would have required sending thousands of fresh American troops back into combat.
• Military and Security Dilemmas: When Biden asked military and intelligence leaders if maintaining the small 2,500-troop contingent could hold the line or keep troops safe, they assessed that staying would require a major military escalation and significantly more U.S. forces to defend against inevitable Taliban offensives
Obviously things could have ended better, but releasing 5000 Taliban prisoners while leaving only 2500 troop before Trump left office left Biden with fewer options for withdrawal. | |
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The Blue Wave.
