Defense official: Troop withdrawal doesn’t mean US has lost leverage against Taliban

John Kirby, assistant to the secretary of Defense for public affairs, on Sunday said the U.S. has not lost its leverage against the Taliban even though the Pentagon is swiftly withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.

“Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace asked Kirby if it is reasonable to expect the U.S. to be able to address terrorist threats from Afghanistan when the nearest military base will be over a thousand miles away.

“We always want to find additional options Chris. That’s why we’re working with the neighboring countries that are closer to Afghanistan to see what the possibilities are. And we’re doing that as briskly and as energetically as we can to find additional options,” Kirby stated, adding that the U.S. has “sophisticated and robust over-the-horizon capabilities.”

Kirby affirmed that the U.S. has the capability to address threats “even from afar,” pointing to the U.S.’s actions in Libya as evidence.

Wallace, however, argued that by abandoning its physical presence in Afghanistan, the U.S., and therefore the Afghan government, has lost its leverage with the Taliban.

“This argument that somehow if you have boots on the ground all of a sudden you have all this leverage … that hasn’t exactly panned out the last five, 10, 15 years Chris,” Kirby said. “We had 100,000 troops on the ground, so the idea that if you have boots on the ground, all of a sudden that gives you a leverage has not exactly been the historical record so far.”

“What we do have is a lot of diplomatic leverage and we’re using that. We are still involved in trying to broker forward a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan and nothing has changed about our commitment to that. And the rest of the international community also needs to stay committed to that kind of an outcome,” Kirby added.