A decade ago, Biden oversaw the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from a foreign battlefield, only to see terrorists resurface shortly after we left.
I concur with the house editorial on President Biden’s decision to fully withdraw from Afghanistan by September 11 that concludes, “This withdrawal will likely only swap the unsatisfactory status quo for what we have been trying to avoid coming to pass in Afghanistan the last two decades.”
While I’ve disagreed with Michael Brendan Dougherty on foreign intervention/overseas U.S. military presences/isolationism quite a bit in the past, I think MBD makes the most compelling and articulate case for leaving entirely. If our forces are going to leave the country entirely beyond the standard presence to protect an embassy, they should leave after a long, quiet stretch. The long, quiet stretch that has endured for the past year or two is in large part the fruit of a negotiated ceasefire conditioned upon our departure. Sticking around carries a considerable risk that we’re back to a war footing over there.
I love, and frequently like to cite, the Stephen Covey advice, “Begin with the end in mind.” What is our primary objective in Afghanistan? To prevent terrorists from killing Americans.
Everything else in this discussion – human rights, women’s rights, the geopolitical balance in the region, the promises of past administrations, domestic political pressures – is secondary to that primary objective. If our departure makes it less likely that terrorists will kill Americans, then we should go ahead with it. But if our departure makes it more likely that terrorists will kill Americans, then we shouldn’t go ahead with it.
None of us has a crystal ball or can foresee the course of events with perfect clarity. I think the departure of our remaining 3,500 soldiers and the roughly 7,000 non-U.S. NATO troops changes the likelihood of a Taliban takeover from a near-impossibility to a likely scenario. But I can’t know for sure. And I can’t know for sure that the Taliban, once in power again, will continue to break its past promises and work closely with al-Qaeda.
Moving ahead, let’s keep this in mind: President Biden, this decision, and its consequences, are all on you. Maybe this move will work out fine, the Taliban will belatedly realize there’s nothing to be gained by working with al-Qaeda and other extremist groups, and Americans will never have to worry about who’s running Afghanistan again. Maybe Americans won’t really care if the Taliban regains power, and maybe Americans will be able to look at images of a new generation of schoolgirls having their faces scarred from acid and conclude, “that’s not our problem.”
But if this doesn’t go well after an American withdrawal . . . this is all your fault, Joe Biden. Because if al-Qaeda turns Afghanistan into their training base for overseas attacks again, this will be the second time in a decade that Joe Biden has overseen the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from a foreign battlefield, assuring us the threat has passed, only to see it resurface shortly after we left. Last time it was Iraq and ISIS. In 2012, Joe Biden used to brag, “Osama bin Laden is dead and GM is alive.” By 2014, ISIS was running vast swaths of Iraq and Syria and the U.S. government lost $11.2 billion on the GM bailout. There’s a reason former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates — who served in the Obama administration — concluded Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Joe Biden can’t claim he wasn’t warned. At minimum, every Afghan-policy expert acknowledges that a collapse of the Afghan government is a possibility — many would say a strong possibility. Everybody acknowledges that instead of cutting ties to al-Qaeda as they promised, the Taliban are as close with them as ever. Everybody knows the risks of what Biden is doing now. Biden’s own CIA director just told Congress, “When the time comes for the U.S. military to withdraw, the U.S. government’s ability to collect and act on threats will diminish.”
If Afghanistan breaks badly from here on out, it is all on Biden.