Former US National Security Adviser, John Bolton, has called the US-Taliban Doha deal that led to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan a “disastrous mistake”.
“He [Donald Trump] negotiated a deal with the Taliban that Biden later implemented,” Bolton said in a Thursday interview on The Hill’s show on NewsNation.
“That was a disastrous mistake for America and for our national security in the world.”
Bolton, who served as Trump’s NSA, left his post in 2019 and has since become a prominent critic of Donald Trump.
“Those who make these claims about what Trump did in his first term don’t really understand how we got to the places we did. Because many of the things they now give Trump credit for, he wanted to go in the opposite direction.” He told the NewsNation.
The Doha Deal, signed in early February 2020, paved the way for America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021.
Earlier, the Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, criticized US President Joe Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. He called the withdrawal a “mistake of epic proportions” and accused the Biden administration of failing to have a contingency plan in place.
“This unconditional withdrawal, I call it the unconditional surrender to the Taliban, who have now taken over Afghanistan.” McCaul said.
