Are you serious?
While the Biden administration has already attempted to shift blame to Donald Trump for the scenes coming out of Afghanistan, Biden owns both the decision to leave and the catastrophic withdrawal he oversaw as commander-in-chief.
“When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor—which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019—that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. forces,” Biden said in a statement released Saturday.
“Therefore, when I became President, I faced a choice — follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our forces and our allies’ forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict,” President Biden maintained in the written statement.
Bunk. President Biden was no more bound by former President Trump’s agreement with the Taliban than Trump was required to abide by former President Barack Obama’s Iran deal, known formerly as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Neither agreement bound future presidents because neither deal was presented to the Senate for ratification.
As the current commander-in-chief, Biden holds power to decide every aspect of the withdrawal decision. Biden already extended Trump’s May 1, 2021 deadline to September, and if he believed the Taliban too strong, the Afghanistan government too weak, or the withdrawal decision entirely misplaced, the current president could have changed course.
He didn’t because he didn’t want to.