Republican defense hawk Lindsey Graham loudly complained about President Joe Biden’s commitment to fully withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan by September, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity on Tuesday night the president is “paving the way” for another 9/11.
The new date set by Biden on Tuesday actually pushes back the original deadline of May 1 that was first established by former President Trump. Graham, a fierce Trump ally, privately lobbied the ex-president last year to leave a small residual force in Afghanistan amid peace agreements with the Taliban, an argument he restated on Tuesday night.
“Our military told President Biden that if you withdraw all of our forces, al Qaeda and ISIS will come roaring back, Afghanistan would disintegrate into civil war, and we can avoid all of that by having 3,000-5,000 American forces making sure that ISIS and al Qaeda never come back to hurt us,” the South Carolina senator declared. “He rejected that advice. Afghanistan is going to deteriorate pretty rapidly, al Qaeda and ISIS are going to come back, he is paving the way for another 9/11.”
