America’s Longest War: A Visual History of 19 Years in Afghanistan

The war in Afghanistan has spanned the administrations of presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. A few months into his administration, President Biden announced a whole U.S. troop withdrawal by Sept. 11, the twenty-yr anniversary of the assaults on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

“I’m now the fourth United States president to preside in excess of American troop presence in Afghanistan,” Mr. Biden claimed. “Two Republicans, two Democrats. I will not move this obligation on to a fifth.”

The fees to The usa have been high. The lives of far more than two,four hundred U.S. troops have been lost, and military bills have exceeded $two.26 trillion, according to Brown University’s Expenditures of War undertaking.

A conditional peace deal signed in February 2020 among the U.S. and the Taliban was intended to pave the way for warring Afghan factions to carry decades of battling to an finish. But subsequent energy-sharing talks among the Afghan authorities and Taliban stalled as each sides waited to see what posture the new U.S. president would adopt. Mr. Biden’s assure to go away Afghanistan for fantastic, no matter of the situations on the ground, lessens the incentive for the Taliban to make concessions in these talks.

U.S. officials say they are concerned the U.S.-backed authorities in Kabul may possibly be unable to reduce the Taliban from widening its management in excess of swaths of the country, enabling extremist teams to function there and undoing improvements in governance, like on women’s legal rights.