[Whitfield:] Welcome back. Nearly 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan won't be coming home next year as planned. In a major reversal, President Barack Obama delayed the anticipated troop drawdown, deciding to keep those American troops in Afghanistan through next year. Seth Moulton is a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee. He also did four tours in Iraq as a U.S. Marine. Good to see you!
[Representative Seth Moulton , Massachusetts:] Thanks for having me on.
[Whitfield:] Great. I wonder, Congressman, do you believe the president had no choice, but to do this or do you believe it's a mistake?
[Moulton:] I think it's the right decision. I think it was a difficult decision, but the right decision. And the most important thing is, we cannot repeat the same mistake we made in Iraq. We're just five years after we triumphantly brought the last troops home, we've had to send the troops back again to quell the chaos.
[Whitfield:] But at the same time, are you now seeing them, parallels between Iraq and Afghanistan in the making?
[Moulton:] Well, I'll tell you, that's my concern. And when the commander in Afghanistan, General John Campbell, came and testified before the House Armed Services Committee last week, this was the subject of my questions. I said, how are we going to make sure we don't repeat the same mistakes that we made in Iraq? And I think it really boils down to two things. The first is we've got to bring the troops out when conditions on the ground warrant, not based on some arbitrary timeline. The second thing is that we've got to talk about a long-term political solution to ensure the success of the Afghan government. Because, what ultimately happened in Iraq is the Iraqi government fell apart. It got so sectarian that its own army didn't even trust the government to do its job. And so, that political vacuum is really the enemy to peace in the Middle East.
[Whitfield:] And why will keeping U.S. troops make a difference, help change those dynamics, impact those dynamics?
[Moulton:] Well, the point is that it's both things. You know, we have to maintain some degree of security to help the Afghan government do its job. But what concerns me about the president's announcement is that he really just talked about the military presence, and not about what he's going to do to ensure the continued political success of the Afghan government. And let's not forget, it was a political vacuum in Iraq that allowed the rise of ISIS, and it was a political vacuum in Afghanistan in 2001 that allowed the base of terrorist camps that ultimately resulted in September 11th.
[Whitfield:] Wouldn't this administration or any other administration worry that if the U.S. were so hands-on in the forming or the reinforcing of a government, then there would be, you know, global outrage of, you know, the U.S. overreaching, imposing itself on other countries.
[Moulton:] That's I mean, that's a great question and of course, you have to strike that balance. But I think we really came up short in Iraq. And we can't repeat that mistake in Afghanistan. In Iraq, you know, John Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker came back from the surge, and they said, we've made tremendous military progress, but we haven't achieved the political success that we need. We built the largest U.S. Embassy in the world in Baghdad, so we could have some sort of political diplomatic surge, but then we left it half full. And that's the piece that I think we can't forget in Afghanistan. The president made the right decision to extend the stay of the troops. But we've got to hear about the political plan as well, because that's what ultimately will lead to a success, and ensure that once the troops do come home, they never have to go back.
[Whitfield:] All right, Congressman Seth Moulton, thanks so much for your time. Appreciate it.
[Moulton:] Thank you.
[Whitfield:] All right, still to come, Hillary Clinton seems to be getting a boost after the first Democratic boost. She's now neck and neck with Bernie Sanders in a key primary state.