US failure in Afghanistan signals ‘irreversible erosion’ of American hegemony: Russian senator

A Russian senator says the US failure in Afghanistan goes beyond the failure of individual US presidents and depicts the “irreversible erosion” of American hegemony over the world.

Former US President Donald Trump blames his successor Joe Biden for the US failure in Afghanistan, Aleksey Pushkov wrote in his Telegram channel on Sunday.

He continued, “But Bush Jr., Obama and Trump himself have failed there. Biden only finally formalized the failure with a decision on a complete withdrawal of troops, completing what his predecessors had begun and continued.”

Trump, in a Friday statement, slammed Biden over “the tragic mess in Afghanistan,” adding, “Do you miss me yet?”

He also said later that Biden ran out of Afghanistan instead of “following the plan our administration left for him—a plan that protected our people and our property, and ensured the Taliban would never dream of taking our embassy or providing a base for new attacks against America.”

Biden, in response, blamed Trump for leaving the Taliban “in the strongest position militarily since 2001.”

Taliban seek peaceful transfer of power in 'next few days': Spokesman

A Taliban spokesman says the group is looking forward to a peaceful transition of power in the next few days.

“When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor—which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019—that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on US forces. Shortly before he left office, he also drew US forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500,” Biden stated in a Saturday statement.

However, according to Pushkov, “this is not about the bugs of individual US presidents.”

“This is about a much deeper process of irreversible erosion of American hegemony, and most importantly, their very ability to fulfill the role of a hegemon,” the Russian senator added.

Another historical experiment in Washington

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also took note of the unfolding developments in Afghanistan, saying there is a confrontation between two forces in the war-torn country, with both sides being the outcome of the US thought process.

“The world is watching with horror the result of another historical experiment in Washington,” Zakharova wrote in her Telegram channel on Sunday.

Security sources: No clashes take place between Taliban, Iran border guards

Security sources say there has been no clashes between the Taliban militants and Iranian border guards at common border.

In remarks earlier, Pushkov said the latest developments in Afghanistan testify to the failure of the United States’ foreign strategy of “exporting democracy”.

“The depth of the failure of the foreign strategy of the United States, which in the early 2000s set itself the task of ‘democratizing’ the Near and Middle East, is obvious. A complete disaster and a powerful blow to the American strategy of ‘exporting democracy’ – this is the result of this course. The events in Afghanistan are another confirmation of this,” he maintained.

The situation in Afghanistan aggravated in the aftermath of the withdrawal of the US forces, who invaded the country 20 years ago to topple the Taliban in response to the September 11 attacks on the United States.

The withdrawal of US troops began in early May and is planned to be concluded by the end of August.

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