The New York Times, in an analysis marking the fifth anniversary of the end of the Afghanistan war, has written that after Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011, the United States\u2019 goal gradually shifted from military victory to preventing the Afghan government from collapsing and delaying defeat.<\/p>\n
Greg Jaffe, the author of the analysis, described bin Laden\u2019s killing in May 2011 as one of the best opportunities for the United States to leave Afghanistan. He wrote that at the time al-Qaeda had been severely weakened and it had also become clear that defeating the Taliban administration would not be easy, but even so, the war went on for another decade.<\/p>\n
According to The New York Times, the continuation of the war was not only the result of military calculations. Concerns about damage to America\u2019s credibility, a sense of responsibility toward Afghan allies, and the belief that leaving without victory would render the sacrifices of U.S. forces meaningless were among the factors that kept Washington from an early withdrawal.<\/p>\n
The analysis adds that the Taliban administration had also concluded that it did not need to defeat the United States on the battlefield to win, and that it was enough to outlast U.S. forces and public opinion in the country. As the number of American troops declined and domestic opposition in the United States to continuing the war grew, the political and military costs of Washington\u2019s presence in Afghanistan also rose.<\/p>\n
The New York Times wrote that in the final years of the war, America\u2019s goal had effectively been reduced to managing defeat; that is, trying to keep the Afghan government in place, reduce casualties and costs, and delay its collapse as much as possible. According to the analysis, 868 more U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan after bin Laden\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
The Afghanistan war finally ended in August 2021 with the withdrawal of U.S. forces and the Taliban\u2019s return to power. The New York Times then compared this experience with renewed tensions between the U.S. and Iran, warning that Washington may once again have entered a war that is easier to start than to end.<\/p>\n
According to the newspaper, U.S. officials initially stressed at the outset of the conflict with Iran that this war would not be like the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But as attacks continued and the Strait of Hormuz was closed, the tone of U.S. military officials changed, and they spoke of the possibility that the campaign could continue for months or longer.<\/p>\n
The Afghanistan war began after the September 11, 2001 attacks and became the longest war in U.S. history. Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, was killed in 2011 in a U.S. operation in Pakistan, an event that was then regarded as one of the major turning points in the war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The New York Times says the U.S. shifted from victory to delaying defeat in Afghanistan after Osama bin Laden was killed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}