McConnell says US has ‘little or no leverage’ to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Sunday said the U.S. has “little or no leverage” to evacuate American citizens and Afghan allies from Afghanistan after U.S. troops withdraw on Aug. 31.

“We have little or no leverage to get our people out or our allies,” McConnell told host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”

McConnell’s comments came after national security adviser Jake Sullivan told Wallace that the U.S. has “substantial leverage” to ensure American citizens and others can be safely evacuated from the country.

McConnell also raised concerns regarding American citizens and Afghan allies who choose to remain in the region after President Biden’s deadline, saying those individuals will become “either a potential victim or hostage.”

“Remember, the Taliban love taking hostages. They’ve done this before. It puts us in an extraordinarily difficult position,” he said.

He noted the difficulty the U.S. would have in extracting those individuals once U.S. forces leave, noting the landlocked nature of the country.

“Remember, Afghanistan is landlocked. There’s only one way in by air and one way out by air. We don’t have sort of friends in the neighborhood that would provide us the kind of intelligence that we would normally get, for example, in Syria or in Africa or in Yemen,” he said.

“It’s going to be extremely difficult. We have very, very little leverage to extract additional Americans or Afghan allies from this landlocked country,” he added.

McConnell also slammed Biden’s decision to pull U.S. troops from Afghanistan, calling it “one of the worst foreign policy decisions in American history.”