The Deep File: The Afghanistan Crisis
Events in Afghanistan have dominated the month of August. Hopefully, this is the only defining foreign policy crisis in the Biden presidency. On that, though, I remain dubious.
The reason I make this crisis the focus of this month’s Deep File is because it’s a crisis that will continue to have ripple effects through the Biden presidency and possibly beyond. Whether it's the possibility, as Biden himself acknowledged, of having to go back into Afghanistan to hunt down emerging terror threats like ISIS-K, finding Central Asia become part of the Chinese sphere of influence, or finding allies newly reticent to rely on the US for help, this crisis, even if it doesn’t destroy the Biden presidency, will certainly haunt it.
And due to the fact that there are no firings or resignations coming from the Biden administration any time soon, America, sadly, should brace for further crises like this.
August 5: The crisis begins
In the last few weeks, America has wound down its military mission in Afghanistan as the September 11 deadline for full withdrawal approaches. US forces, in a significant and symbolic move, abandoned Bagram Air Base even as the Taliban continued to make gains against the Afghan government.
August 13: “Forget it, Joe. It’s Kabul.”
In the early days of the Biden administration, President Biden committed to a full withdrawal of US ground forces from Afghanistan by September 11 of this year. That withdrawal has been proceeding apace…. Along with rapid Taliban advances on all fronts. The Afghan National Forces are crumbling as city after city falls to the Taliban as they encircle Kabul, and America sends in the Marines to evacuate its embassy staff and other Americans in the country.
This should be deja vu for Team Biden, many of whom oversaw the 2011 Iraq withdrawal: When you broadcast a withdrawal deadline, your enemy will ensure that you withdraw under a hail of fire. It creates a visual of defeat for the US as the Taliban is on the verge of returning to power.
America is trying to stem the forward motion of the Taliban, but words don’t really seem to have an effect here.
Afghanistan will now join Vietnam as one of America’s most tragic military adventures, not because it ended in military defeat per se (though American morale will certainly take a hit), but because it is ending with so many gains for the Afghan nation and people set to be reversed.
August 20: What the heck just happened?
Last week, I had barely finished writing that Kabul was set to fall when Kabul did, in fact, fall. Taliban forces moved into the Afghanistan capital and solidified their gains, declaring victory and the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” by the end of this week.
The oncoming Taliban sent waves of people flooding onto the tarmacs of Kabul airport as US forces tried in vain to keep runways cleared. Reinforcements were rushed in before flights could be resumed, but the panicked search for seats on outbound flights continues.
The speed of the collapse of the Afghan government and security forces marks another tragic lapse in judgement by American leaders at every level as the President and other senior foreign policy officials routinely downplayed military and intelligence reports on the brittle nature of the situation on the ground.
What’s happening now?
An initial round of protests against Taliban rule were quickly quashed by a hail of bullets.
Now, with the Taliban firmly in control of Kabul and other major population centers (and enjoying access to an American-made arsenal), and American forces tied down to securing the airport, reprisals have now begun as the UN reports door-to-door raids, and Christianity Today reports on the targeting of Afghanistan Christians.
That the Taliban would waste no time in visiting violence upon their enemies (real and perceived) should not surprise anyone given the Taliban’s track record. Hell, it’s not even surprising Joe Biden who seems to have been caught by surprise by almost everything else related to this event.
American personnel and Afghan supporters still in the country are being left to fend for themselves (we don’t even seem to know how many need to get out) while America and NATO scramble resources to secure the Kabul airport and get more people out.
America has moved to freeze Afghan government assets to prevent them from falling into Taliban hands, while the Taliban has moved to put up a welcome sign for China, and allay American concerns of future terror attacks. Yeah, I don’t believe them either.
Diplomacy, we hardly knew ye
For being the President who was going to bring diplomacy and alliance back to American foreign policy and advance democracy at home and abroad, Joe Biden really dropped the ball on Afghanistan.
Even as the situation spun out of control, the President took some time off and did not hold any consultations with world leaders prior to the fall of Kabul or his midweek speech to the nation. Only when criticism at home began to ramp up did Biden place calls to London and Berlin.
Meanwhile, China jumped at the chance to hold up America’s failure in Afghanistan as proof positive that it would abandon Taiwan in the lurch, which the US quickly responded to, but talks cheap, it seems, in the Biden administration.
The blame game
As the scale of this catastrophe became apparent, the Biden administration has attempted to do two things: 1) defend the decision to withdraw, and 2) direct blame in every direction.
After getting called back to DC from a brief vacation, President Biden delivered remarks to the nation on the situation that did little to assuage a voting populace angry with the slapdash nature of American withdrawal and generally disapproving of the President’s handling of the situation.
Biden’s remarks did little to allay concerns on either side of the aisle as Congressional leaders both Republicans and Democrats, demanded answers from Biden and his foreign policy team and hinted at future investigations.
For their part, the Biden administration has laid blame for the fiasco at the feet of the Afghan government and military, and Donald Trump.
You might remember, the Trump administration had negotiated a deal with the Taliban last year that essentially put America on the path of a phased withdrawal, but as former VP Mike Pence articulated in an op-ed this week, the Trump plan looked nothing like the Biden plan.
Most Americans seem to agree with Pence: blame for this crisis lies squarely on President Biden. But will that matter at the ballot box?
My two cents? Americans are right to blame President Biden and his foreign policy team for this failure. After all, as I’ve noted before, much of this team was drawn from the Obama foreign policy team that also contributed to several crises and failures in that administration. They clearly have not developed much self-awareness. However, blame should not just be laid on American leaders. The collusion of Pakistan with the Taliban ensured the group’s survival over the last two decades, which directly made this comeback possible. America needs to seriously reevaluate its relationship with Pakistan.
Kabul and consequences
Election outcomes are just one possible consequence to be mindful of going forward. Historically, foreign policy troubles don’t usually impact a President or his party too much (and Biden is praying that trend holds). But then, we haven’t had a foreign policy meltdown like this in a generation, and the Democrats have already been struggling on other domestic fronts.
Beyond American elections, though, the fall of Afghanistan once again opens up the possibility of a nation-sized terrorist haven that can pose a direct threat to the US, another wave of refugees headed to Europe, and massive human suffering with Afghanistan. Indeed, armed opposition to the Taliban is already emerging, and ongoing civil conflict is likely.
This is going to be an ongoing crisis for American to manage, and a waking catastrophe for the Afghani people.
Did it have to end this way?
Critics of the withdrawal have argued forcefully, though not without error, that America’s support for the Afghanistan government was sustainable and keeping the Taliban at bay. We didn’t have to withdraw now, or certainly not as fast as we did, they argue.
President Biden, for his part, argues that withdrawal was going to be messy regardless of circumstances, and seems content to have ripped the band-aid off even as he apparently bemoans the consequences of that decision.
What does seem clear, though, is that America was not without warnings or options in terms of managing this situation as it developed, but key leaders like President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan chose to either downplay or ignore those warnings. And many are suffering the consequences of that foolishness.
August 27: Out of the frying pan and into the fire in Afghanistan, literally
If it couldn’t get any worse in Afghanistan, the last week continued to demonstrate that, no, it could keep getting worse.
Last week, it appeared as though the US did not know how many US citizens remained in the country as crowds stampeded Kabul airport and efforts were stepped up to evacuate foreign nationals and Afghan allies.
This week, it seemed like America was reconsidering its August 31 deadline for evacuations, which the Taliban promptly rejected, and the Biden administration appeared to step back, but not quite.
Next, as American reinforcements started drawing down as the August 31 date drew closer, British intelligence signalled an imminent terrorist threat to the airport, which materialized yesterday morning in a suicide bombing that killed dozens including 13 American service members. Those are the first American combat deaths in Afghanistan in 18 months. And the party claiming responsibility? You know them: ISIS. Or, more appropriately, an ISIS affiliate. And more attacks are anticipated.
Just when I thought this situation couldn’t look worse for the US, the commander of CENTCOM acknowledged that the US had shared information with the Taliban on the names of US nationals and Afghan allies, ostensibly to allow for safe passage. We shared identifying intelligence with a known terror-supporting organization.
The response by America’s national leadership? Well, I haven’t been following it all day, but the State Department announced there’d be no press briefing; five hours after the terrorist attack on the airport, and as of this writing, President Biden had said nothing (update, he did eventually make a statement); and VP Harris went right from a talking up her trip to Vietnam to campaigning for Gavin Newsom in California (update, that plan has since been cancelled).
I really, honestly try to give America’s leaders the benefit of the doubt in this newsletter because the focus is to try to understand the many variables influencing political events. However, three weeks into this rolling disaster and the Biden administration has developed a clear pattern of avoidance, deflection, and denial on Afghanistan. They are being dishonest with the American people, our allies, and the Afghans, and deliberately so. It’s a hard situation to be sure, but the Biden administration is actively making it harder.