WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in his first news conference as Pentagon chief, said Friday that progress toward peace in Afghanistan and an end to U.S. military involvement there depends on the Taliban reducing attacks. He said, right now, “clearly the violence is too high.”
He refused, however, to say when the U.S. will decide if it will meet the May 1 deadline for full troop withdrawal, or if America and its NATO allies will try to renegotiate the peace deal with the Taliban and keep some troops there longer.
“We are mindful of the looming deadlines, but we want to do this methodically and deliberately,” Austin said. “But we’re focused on making sure that we make the right decisions, and we’ll go through this process deliberately.”
Afghanistan is shaping up as a major national security dilemma for Austin and the rest of President Joe Biden’s fledgling national security team. There is little political appetite to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but pulling them out risks further empowering the Taliban and causing a resurgence in terrorism.
