Will the United States Really Go to Zero Troops in Afghanistan?
By Jonathan Schroden
Monday, June 15, 2020, 8:34 AM
In the final U.S. presidential debate of 2016, candidate Donald Trump sharply criticized his opponent Hillary Clinton on the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. Specifically, he claimed that by withdrawing all U.S. forces from that country, “she gave us ISIS because her and Obama created this huge vacuum.†On Feb. 29 of this year, President Trump authorized Amb. Zalmay Khalilzad to sign the awkwardly titled “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban and the United States of America.†The agreement calls for the United States to withdraw all of its troops from Afghanistan within 14 months, but given Trump’s sharp criticism of a similar, previous course of action in Iraq, it is unclear whether a full U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will really happen.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/will-united-states-really-go-zero-troops-afghanistan
