With Afghan pullout, US ditches 'forever wars'
Joe Biden's pullout from Afghanistan has stunned with its speed, but Washington already decided four years ago that it was fed up with forever wars and turned its attention to traditional great power competition with China and Russia.
Fighting stateless terror groups like Al-Qaeda and Islamic State consumed the US security establishment, and trillions of dollars, since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Biden predecessor Donald Trump came to office in 2017 promising to quit Afghanistan, calling the war there a "mess" and a "waste."
The conflicts there and in Iraq had come to be characterized by unending troop deployments, persistent levels of violence, and no ability to conclusively defeat the enemy.
By 2020 Trump had overcome resistance and laid the ground for pullouts, leaving only 2,500 troops in each country by the time he stepped down in January. Biden accepted that trajectory, announcing Thursday that US military involvement in Afghanistan would conclude by August 31.
"We are ending America's longest war," he said. "The United States cannot afford to remain tethered to policies created to respond to a world as it was 20 years ago."
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210711-with-afghan-pullout-us-ditches-forever-wars