“Our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, our impossibly muddled China strategy, the growing involvement of senior military officers in the political arena, and deep confusion about the purpose of our military are clear signals of a disturbing decay and markers of a dangerous decline in our nation’s capabilities and will.” (Project 2025, Section 2.1: Department of Defense, Christopher Miller, page 123, paragraph 4.)

I’m going to stop you right there, Christopher. It was Donald Trump and the Trump administration who orchestrated our “disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.” The Trump administration negotiated a withdrawal agreement¹ with the Taliban, excluding the Afghan government.² This resulted in 5,000 imprisoned Taliban soldiers being freed, and Trump set a date of May 1, 2021 for the withdrawal.

The Trump administration kept to the agreement even though the Taliban didn’t (what a surprise!), reducing U.S. Troop levels from about 13,000³ to 2,500⁴, even though the Taliban continued to attack Afghan government forces⁵ and welcomed al-Qaeda terrorists⁶ into the Taliban leadership.

More on that timeline here.⁷ Biden essentially had no choice but to follow through with Trump’s agreement – otherwise, the word of the United States means nothing. Biden did delay the May 1 deadline by a few months. In truth, the withdrawal had its roots in four Administrations.⁸

Even Trump’s own former national security adviser, retired Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, says Trump bears a portion of the blame⁹ for the botched withdrawal:

“Oh, yes,” McMaster said after being asked by (Anderson) Cooper if Trump bears “part of the responsibility for what happened.” McMaster then added, “The whole premise of talking to the Taliban before you leave Afghanistan…why the heck were we even doing that? The Obama administration didn’t negotiate with al-Qaeda and Iraq on the way out,” he continued. “If we were gonna leave, why not just leave? What happened in these series of negotiations is we kind of threw the Afghans under the bus on the way out…then forced them to release 5,000 of some of the most heinous people on the earth.”

While the withdrawal was taking place, the Republican National Committee scrubbed its website¹⁰ of content that previously praised the former president’s “historic peace agreement with the Taliban.” To say nothing of Trump’s original plan to negotiate with the Taliban at Camp David¹¹.

So, for Miller to place 100% of the blame for a “disastrous withdrawal” on the Biden Administration is disingenuous at best.