Joe Biden and the Taliban's re-takeover of Afghanistan: A pre-determined plan or a strategic failure?

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 ATU Faculty of Law and Political Sciences

2 PhD candidate in Iranian issues, Baft Department, Islamic Azad University, Baft, Iran.

Abstract

Despite the fact that the United States spent lots of money to advance the nation-building project in Afghanistan following the defeat of the Taliban in 2001, on August 15, 2021, this fundamentalist group was able to re-take over Kabul. The Taliban's move in Afghanistan came as Biden had laid out his new policy and strategy on Afghanistan namely US withdrawal from Afghanistan. For this reason, many experts and Analysts attribute the Taliban’s dominance to the policies of the Biden administration which had previously been pursued by Trump. Nevertheless, another question that arose in this regard was whether Biden's policy regarding the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was a pre-determined regional plan with specific goals and principles, or whether it was solely for the purpose of the reduction in US foreign spending based on the partisan attitudes? In this study, the authors attempt to examine these two main perspectives on Biden's exit policy from Afghanistan based on a comparative method. The findings of this study indicate that despite the existence of two main perspectives on Biden's exit policy, various components and variables are involved in Biden's strategy towards Afghanistan, which makes it necessary to adopt a multifactorial approach. This multifactorial approach is presented at the end by the authors.

Keywords

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References

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American Strategic Studies
Volume 2, Issue 2 - Serial Number 6
September 2022
Pages 43-66

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History

  • Receive Date: 08 March 2022
  • Revise Date: 21 June 2022
  • Accept Date: 19 July 2022

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