Top military officials have appeared before Senate and House panels this week, drawing renewed attention to the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Officials have told President Joe Biden, and his predecessors, that withdrawing from Afghanistan would be unwise, according to John Bolton, former U.N. Ambassador and National Security Advisor who spoke with KCBS Radio's Margie Shafer and Eric Thomas Thursday morning.
"Their point is that although the situation in Afghanistan was not satisfactory to say the least, for 20 years we had achieved the strategic objective of keeping the American homeland safe from terrorist attacks," said Bolton.
The military presence in the country was an insurance policy, "It was never an effort to make Afghanistan the Switzerland of Central Asia," he said.
Now that the Taliban have regained control and Al Qaeda is back on the scene as well, there is a resurgence of that post-9/11 concern, as well as larger implications globally that the United States can’t adhere to a long-term commitment, said Bolton.
The perception of military presence in the country has been skewed.
"It's a misnomer to say that we've been at war there for 20 years," He said. The United States has had troops there for the past 20 years, and so has NATO. That has been key to keeping potential threats at bay.
"Ideally you'd like to see the terrorists give up and go home," he said. But that's just not the case. "Our withdrawal does not mean the war is over."
Even though the Afghanistan government wasn't perfect, at least it had Democratic legitimacy, while the Taliban does not.
The turning point came in early 2020, when former President Donald Trump met and negotiated with the Taliban in Doha. It created a huge dip in morale in the government and within the military. The talks excluded the actual, legitimate government of Afghanistan, the one the U.S. had created. "We were negotiating with a bunch of terrorists," said Bolton.
Just one of many controversial moves during his presidency, Bolton added that Trump’s influence is declining among voters. And more stories, more evidence of this type of political dealings, is a contributing factor.
"They want a fresh face," he said. "I don't think this is particularly noteworthy or unusual when someone leaves the most powerful office in the world, the oval office, to sit by the swimming pool in Mar-A-Lago."
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