Inability to negotiate

It has become a good custom for American leaders to announce the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

They have made such statements dozens of times.

Joe Biden including.

He is known as a supporter of the withdrawal of troops - in words.

Even when he was vice president, Biden promised many times to withdraw the troops.

But to promise is not to marry.

And now Joe Biden has refused to fulfill the agreement with the Taliban * and withdraw troops from Afghanistan.

Time is short until May, he says.

You will be bleeding if you don't leave, one of the Taliban leaders told him in response.

His colorful predecessor, Donald Trump, negotiated with great difficulty in February 2020 the withdrawal of American troops by May 1, 2021, that is, the Americans had a year and three months to pack up and leave.

But now Biden says there was little time.

We need more.

How much more?

We'll see.

He does not give a date, he does not offer a time frame - "be patient yet."

We want to get out, they say, but not by May 1.

And what about the contract?

So what, what is the contract?

No, do not think, the United States does not want to stay in Afghanistan forever.

They want to leave, but not now.

Someday.

Not dripping over them.

The year that has passed since the signing of the treaty was convenient for the Americans: the Taliban complied with the agreement and did not shoot at the American soldiers.

For a whole year, the Americans had practically no combat losses.

Many Afghans were killed - soldiers of the Kabul regime and civilians, but the Americans were given time to calmly pack up and leave: not under fire, but calmly. 

But Afghanistan is a source of cheap drugs, it is believed that generates many billions of dollars for US officials and other elements of the "deep state".

The export of narcotic products is staged there on a grand scale.

The "product" is transported by American military transport planes from the Bagram base in occupied Afghanistan to the Bondsteel base in occupied Kosovo, and from there it leaves for Europe. 

Neither the people of Afghanistan nor the people of the United States are given anything from this trade.

The American taxpayer has already poured more than $ 1 trillion into the bottomless barrel of Afghanistan, but the Afghans did not receive anything from American bounty - everything went into the pockets of the Kabul bribe-takers.

Russians in Afghanistan built schools and factories, Americans only prisons.

Since 2001, since the beginning of the occupation, Afghanistan has only grown poorer.

In addition to drugs, the country exports young men who are fleeing by the thousands, mainly to Iran and Europe.

They are fleeing poverty and from being drafted into the army of the Kabul regime. 

They have no desire to die defending drug lords and American henchmen - and they can be understood.

“May 1 is a serious date,” says General Miller, commander of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The Taliban are serious about the withdrawal of American troops by May 1, and if the withdrawal does not take place, the occupiers could still bleed.

There are only 3 thousand American soldiers there, but there are another 30 thousand mercenaries and 10 thousand NATO soldiers.

If politicians give the go-ahead, there is still an opportunity to get out quickly and without panic, says The New Yorker

,

referring to General Miller, but for this it is necessary to quickly lower the requirements: not insist on preserving Western democracy in Kabul, on American values, but let the Afghans figure it out for themselves. ...

Lingering supporters say the withdrawal will hurt the rights of Afghan women and gender minorities, and the American-appointed government in Kabul will inevitably collapse.

“This is none of our business,” supporters of the withdrawal say. 

There is very little interest in the US in Afghanistan and in the withdrawal of troops.

Mostly mercenaries and professionals serve there.

This does not concern the people, and everyone has enough of their own worries.      

Russia supports attempts to reach agreement and reconciliation in Afghanistan.

It is in Russia's interests for Afghanistan to be a calm, peaceful, prosperous state, so that Islamic terrorism does not penetrate from its territory into Central Asia, and from there into Russia itself.  

Cynics say that the presence of American troops is more likely to play into the hands of Russia: they say, without the Americans, the Islamists will quickly cross the Pyanj and go north.

Better to let American soldiers die in Afghanistan than ours on the Volga and the Caucasus.

But the cynics are wrong: the presence of the American occupation forces has already ensured the transfer of thousands of Islamic State fighters ** from Syria and Iraq to Afghanistan, closer to the Russian borders.

The transfer was carried out on American transport aircraft.

Now the Taliban are fighting the Islamic State, the Kabul regime, NATO troops - and they are still winning.

Without the Americans, the chances of internal peace in Afghanistan, of defeat or suppression of IS elements will increase.

But if Americans want to die in the mountains of Afghanistan, that's their business.

The Taliban fighters will help them. 

Biden's decision fits into the fabric of a new aggressive American foreign policy.

No wonder Joe Biden was Obama's vice president and an ardent supporter of the bombing of Belgrade.

The Americans need Afghanistan both for pressure on Central Asia and Russia, and for the opportunity to attack Iran from the east.

And this decision underlines the main qualities of the Biden course - aggressiveness and lack of negotiation.

* "Taliban" - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of February 14, 2003.

** "Islamic State" (IS) - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of December 29, 2014.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.