Pat Harrigan, a Republican representative in the U.S. Congress, has expressed full confidence that the U.S. will return to Afghanistan in the future, criticising the manner of the U.S. withdrawal and arguing that the exit has condemned future generations of Americans to conflict.
Harrigan, a former senior commander in the U.S. Special Forces, spoke with a Daily Signal reporter on Sunday, 9 February, about the withdrawal from Afghanistan and its long-term implications.
Reflecting on the rapid fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in 2021, Harrigan cited this event as one of the primary reasons he decided to enter politics and run for Congress.
A close associate of Mike Waltz, National Security Adviser to Donald Trump, Harrigan warned that the U.S. military and political failure in Afghanistan has endangered American national security, particularly in the face of potential adversaries.
“Our politicians and military leaders have failed us. If we’re structurally so weak that we would lose Afghanistan the way that we lost it, we’re just inviting our adversaries to attack us,” he stated.
He further emphasised his commitment to preventing future conflicts, saying “I want to do everything I possibly can here in Washington to deter that next conflict, which I believe is very likely to happen.”
Harrigan also suggested that if Donald Trump had been President in recent years, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’s attack on Israel would not have occurred.
The Biden administration has faced persistent criticism from Republican politicians and U.S. veterans regarding its handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for what he describes as an unsuccessful U.S. exit from Afghanistan. However, Biden has consistently defended his decision, arguing that ending the two-decade war was necessary.
