President Joe Biden on Thursday called the US war in Afghanistan a “mistake,” drawing parallels with Israel’s response to the recent Hamas attack.
During a news conference at the annual NATO summit, Biden recounted his visit to Israel after the October attack and advised Israeli leaders not to repeat American mistakes after 9/11.
The US intervention in Afghanistan, which began after the 9/11 attacks, led to a 20-year conflict under the banner of fighting terrorism. However, Biden has expressed his long-standing opposition to the “occupation” of Afghanistan, saying the nation cannot be unified.
“When I went to Israel immediately after the massacres that occurred at the hands of Hamas, one thing I told Israel as a member of the War Cabinet, and with Bibi, was not to make the same mistake that the United States made after bin Laden,” Biden said.
Biden suggested that the United States should have withdrawn from Afghanistan after the mission to target Osama bin Laden was accomplished. “I still got criticized for it, but I was totally opposed to the occupation and trying to unite Afghanistan. Once we got bin Laden, we should have moved on, because nobody is ever going to unite that country,” Biden said. “I’ve been every inch of that place — not every inch, the whole thing — from the poppy fields all the way north. I said don’t make the same mistake we made.”
Osama bin Laden was killed in a US special forces operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011. Following extensive peace negotiations with the Taliban, the US withdrew its troops in August 2021. The rapid withdrawal led to the collapse of the previous Afghan government and the return of the Taliban to power.
Biden has faced criticism for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, both domestically and internationally.
