GOP takes down 2020 page touting Trump's 'historic peace agreement with the Taliban'

One of the few areas of foreign policy President Biden and former President Donald Trump agreed on was ending the two-decade-long war in Afghanistan. With the Taliban's effective capture of Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, it appears the war is over two weeks before Biden's deadline, with a chaotic final rush to the exit. Biden is standing by his decision to pull out U.S. forces and contractors, but the Republican Party appears to be tiptoeing backward from Trump's role.
The Republican National Committee has removed a page from the 2020 campaign that says "Biden has had a history of pushing for endless wars" while "Trump has continued to take the lead in peace talks as he signed a historic peace agreement with the Taliban in Afghanistan, which would end America's longest war," The Washington Post's David Weigel noted Sunday.
Trump's secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, argued Sunday that the Trump administration had insisted the Taliban meet "a set of conditions" before the U.S. withdrew, and that the Biden administration "has failed." As the Post's Paul Kane pointed out, it's not clear Trump agrees with that.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
In researching his new book, Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump, Spencer Ackerman spoke in 2020 with retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former Joint Special Operations Command and Afghanistan War commander, and asked him if the War on Terror had been worth it. "It would be impossible to argue that it was," McChrystal answered, Ackerman writes at The Daily Beast. "The outcome just hasn't been positive enough to argue that."
"I think that we can never know a counterfactual, we can never know what would have happened if we'd gone in and done things differently, so I can't argue it automatically would have been different," McChrystal continued. "I think the things that were done with good intentions, mostly. But no. We just made so many fundamental mistakes in how we approached it that the question is, which again, you and I can't answer: Had we gone in with a different mindset, a totally different approach, which would have been more of a counterinsurgency approach, building through the state, would it have worked? I can't say it would've, but I think it would have been a better approach."
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
-
Broadway actors and musicians are on the brink of a strike
The explainer The show, it turns out, may not go on
-
Pentagon reporters turn in badges after refusing rules
Speed Read They refused to sign a restrictive new press policy imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
-
Supreme Court points to gutting Voting Rights Act
speed read States would no longer be required to consider race when drawing congressional maps
-
Pentagon reporters turn in badges after refusing rules
Speed Read They refused to sign a restrictive new press policy imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
-
Supreme Court points to gutting Voting Rights Act
speed read States would no longer be required to consider race when drawing congressional maps
-
Trump says he authorized covert CIA ops in Venezuela
Speed Read He is also considering military strikes inside the country
-
‘Vile, racist’ leaked chats roil Young Republicans
Speed Read Leaders of Young Republican groups made racist, antisemitic and violent comments in private chats
-
Trump ties $20B Argentina bailout to Milei votes
speed read Trump will boost Argentina’s economy — if the country’s right-wing president wins upcoming elections
-
Shutdown: Are Democrats fighting the right battle?
Feature Democrats are holding firm on health insurance subsidies as Trump ramps up the pain by freezing funding and vowing to cut more jobs
-
News organizations reject Pentagon restrictions
Speed Read The proposed policy is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s latest move to limit press access at the Pentagon
-
Trump declares end to Gaza war, ‘dawn’ of new Mideast
Speed Read Hamas freed the final 20 living Israeli hostages and Israel released thousands of Palestinian detainees