Hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan hurt the prestige of America: Pompeo

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says President Joe Biden’s decision to completely withdraw American forces from Afghanistan has damaged the country’s prestige on an international level.

In an interview on Friday, Pompeo said: “President Trump campaigned on getting out of Afghanistan and the American people wanted them out, President Biden campaigned saying he would do the same, and American people were done, tired, exhausted “

He stated that for his entire time with the CIA, the agency had a big footprint in Afghanistan. He said even when he was CIA director, “the president was pressing to get out faster, to get us out more quickly, but we were pretty clear with him that we couldn’t do it.”

Pompeo said the US intended to reach a comprehensive peace agreement in Afghanistan within three to five years, but this required the diplomatic presence of the US in Afghanistan, which unexpectedly failed.

“Historic achievement would be to pull off a peace agreement in three years or five years and we were hopeful that we had begun to head down that road,” he said.

He added that former president Ashraf Ghani opposed America’s talks with the Islamic Emirate and was afraid that America would ask him to step down as president.

However, Pompeo said that the US never asked Ghani to give up power, but that won the election by “stealing votes”.

“President Ghani wasn’t up for (peace deal) , he didn’t want to participate in it and that was most unfortunate because in the end you see what happens unlike Zelenskyy who chose to stay, president Ghani hops on an airplane and heads to some place to go live a very nice peaceful life while there’s so many people suffering in Afghanistan.”

Although many consider the collapse of the Republic system and the rise of the Islamic Emirate as a result of the Doha negotiations, the IEA, however, considers itself committed to all the obligations of the Doha Agreement, emphasizing that the United States was forced to leave Afghanistan due to the tireless struggles of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.