Biden’s credibility as an ally is being annihilated alongside Afghanistan

To borrow from Shakespeare, “His jest will savor but of shallow wit, when thousands weep more than did laugh at it.”

By so callously withdrawing the small contingent of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, and refusing to provide U.S. air support past Sept. 11, 2021, Biden has nuked his credibility with global allies.

There is legitimate debate about Biden’s withdrawal decision. I believe it is a deeply flawed one. Fewer than 10,000 U.S. military personnel were in Afghanistan before the order, and very, very, very few were engaged in ground combat. Instead, these forces were providing aviation, intelligence, and logistics support to Afghan forces and thus obstructing mass Taliban offensives. Offensives of the kind we see now, whereby the Taliban has nearly seized the entire country, and the U.S. Embassy may be overrun.

Would the costs of staying have been worth it?

Again, I say yes. The U.S. mission of 2020/2021 was not that of 2001/2002 or 2009/2010. Marines were not charging through Helmand. Army airborne units were not holding firebases on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Four U.S. personnel died due to combat action in 2020, and none died in 2021. I recognize those tragic losses. I have three friends who separately served in Afghanistan in three separate but very high-risk roles. I have spoken to two of them about their frustrations and the sacrifices of their friends. Still, I believe that U.S. interests would have been overwhelmingly better served if Biden had retained a limited military presence.

This wouldn’t have been fuel for a “forever war” that could not be won. Rather it would have been a foundation for relative Afghan peace and very real U.S. counterterrorism security. A similar model, then, to the U.S. military’s counterterrorism mission in East Africa. Let me emphasize the U.S. interest here: The absence of even a small U.S. military presence will make intelligence and targeting efforts against ISIS and the Taliban’s al Qaeda allies far more difficult. The Taliban’s victory is their victory.

But the speed with which the Taliban have seized, retained, and expanded the strategic initiative is devastating. Not just for the Afghan people, but for Biden’s credibility as an ally that can be trusted.

The Baltic states on Russia’s periphery (already betrayed by Biden’s Nord Stream 2 gift to Vladimir Putin), and allies, such as Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, will be shuddering at what they’re seeing from Biden in Afghanistan. This is a president unwilling to adapt to unpredictable developments, even where they collide with critical U.S. and allied interests. This, then, is a president not reliable as a friend for all seasons.

Biden has also inflicted great cost to his credibility as a humanitarian. Or as Biden likes to present himself, as the ultimate anti-Trump president. In his inaugural address, Biden also pledged to “make America, once again, the leading force for good in the world.”

How does that comport with what we’re now seeing?

We know how. It is diametrically divergent from the Afghan implosion Biden has enabled. On Friday, the BBC’s Yalda Hakim documented the epidemic of fear that is now rippling throughout Afghan civil society. Women and young girls, understandably, are the most afraid. As Hakim reports, the Taliban “told me they are determined to re-impose their version of Sharia law, which would include stoning for adultery, amputation of limbs for theft and preventing girls from going to school beyond the age of 12.” Other reports show that Taliban commanders have been going door-to-door in conquered settlements, demanding that families present all girls over the age of 15 for forced marriage. Which is to say, for a lifetime of rape.

Faced with this reality, Biden has hidden himself away from the public. His staff offer only absurd rhetoric about how they will corral the Taliban by withholding diplomatic party invitations.

But perhaps Biden has always been deluded about his responsibilities as the leader of the free world. In February 2020, then-candidate Biden angrily told CBS’s Margaret Brennan that he would have no responsibility if a withdrawal led to a Taliban triumph. Ludicrously, Biden suggested that staying in Afghanistan would be the moral equivalent of invading China. Except, of course, that invading China would entail nuclear warfare.

China is relevant in a different way, however.

China represents the defining 21st-century challenge to the American-led democratic international order. Biden has rightly made China the centerpiece of his foreign policy strategy. In that vein, I recently wrote about the failure of America’s closest ally to support the restraint of Chinese imperialism. Following that article, a reader emailed me to ask why Britain should stand with America and risk Chinese economic retaliation, when Biden is an unreliable partner. I thought the critique was unfair. Now, I’m not so sure.

But I am sure about one thing. Witnessing Biden’s Afghan disaster, many other allied populations and governments will be asking the same question.