{"id":4477,"date":"2021-02-18T13:25:24","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T13:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=4477"},"modified":"2021-02-18T13:25:24","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T13:25:24","slug":"why-biden-cant-ignore-iraq-and-afghanistan-even-if-he-might-want-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=4477","title":{"rendered":"Why Biden can\u2019t ignore Iraq and Afghanistan, even if he might want to"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“When President Joe Biden gave his first foreign policy address<\/a> two weeks ago, he didn\u2019t once mention the words \u201cIraq\u201d or \u201cAfghanistan.\u201d But events in those two countries over the past 24 hours have offered a stark reminder to the administration that it can\u2019t forever ignore America\u2019s forever wars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Iraq, rockets<\/a> seemingly launched by an Iranian-backed militia<\/a> on Monday killed a non-American civilian contractor at a military base in Erbil. Nine others were injured, including four US contractors and one service member, according to Col. Wayne Marotto, the spokesperson for the US-led coalition against ISIS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in Afghanistan, the Taliban has closed in on major cities<\/a> just a few months before the scheduled departure of US forces on May 1. The insurgent group released an open letter<\/a> to Americans on Tuesday, basically asking the Biden administration to trust the Taliban to lead the nation and respect human rights after the troops leave \u2014 a dubious claim at best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even as Biden would prefer to spend most of his time addressing the coronavirus, China, and climate change<\/a>, it\u2019s clear that, like every president since George W. Bush, he\u2019ll continually have his attention diverted toward Afghanistan and Iraq.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not that he and his team have neglected those countries. Defense chiefs from NATO nations are meeting over the next two days in large part to discuss plans for Afghanistan and Iraq<\/a>. The administration is also reviewing<\/a> its policies in the two countries, weighing what to keep from the past four years and what to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But recent events have added an extra sense of urgency, with US troops under threat in an increasingly unstable Iraq, and a tough decision looming for the president in Afghanistan: leave the country to almost certain ruin, or stay and face another deadly fighting season against the Taliban?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In normal times, those would be tough issues for any administration to handle. In this era, they\u2019re extra difficult.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/22285495\/biden-afghanistan-iraq-taliban-rocket<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“When President Joe Biden gave his first foreign policy address two weeks ago, he didn\u2019t once mention the words \u201cIraq\u201d or \u201cAfghanistan.\u201d But events in those two countries over the past 24 hours have offered a stark reminder to the administration that it can\u2019t forever ignore America\u2019s forever wars.<\/p>\n

In Iraq, rockets seemingly launched by an Iranian-backed militia on Monday killed a non-American civilian contractor at a military base in Erbil. Nine others were injured, including four US contractors and one service member, according to Col. Wayne Marotto, the spokesperson for the US-led coalition against ISIS.<\/p>\n

And in Afghanistan, the Taliban has closed in on major cities just a few months before the scheduled departure of US forces on May 1. The insurgent group released an open letter to Americans on Tuesday, basically asking the Biden administration to trust the Taliban to lead the nation and respect human rights after the troops leave \u2014 a dubious claim at best.<\/p>\n

Even as Biden would prefer to spend most of his time addressing the coronavirus, China, and climate change, it\u2019s clear that, like every president since George W. Bush, he\u2019ll continually have his attention diverted toward Afghanistan and Iraq.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that he and his team have neglected those countries. Defense chiefs from NATO nations are meeting over the next two days in large part to discuss plans for Afghanistan and Iraq. The administration is also reviewing its policies in the two countries, weighing what to keep from the past four years and what to change.<\/p>\n

But recent events have added an extra sense of urgency, with US troops under threat in an increasingly unstable Iraq, and a tough decision looming for the president in Afghanistan: leave the country to almost certain ruin, or stay and face another deadly fighting season against the Taliban?<\/p>\n

In normal times, those would be tough issues for any administration to handle. In this era, they\u2019re extra difficult.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[435,156,836,780,391,158],"class_list":["post-4477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-afghanistan","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-joe-biden","tag-middle-east","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4478,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4477\/revisions\/4478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}