The calamitous U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan and escalation of terrorist threats against American interests are failing to reverse the declining influence of Republican hawks precipitated by the rise of former President Donald Trump.
Republicans in Congress, and those mulling a 2024 presidential bid, have mercilessly denounced President Joe Biden amid the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and chaotic evacuation of American citizens and America’s Afghan allies. The effort was additionally marred by a terrorist attack at the Kabul airport carried out by Islamic State offshoot ISIS-K that killed 13 American servicemen and scores of Afghans, prompting an intensification of Republican attacks on Biden’s embattled leadership.
BIDEN AND TRUMP BATTLE OVER WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN IN AFGHANISTAN
But few, if any, of these Republicans are calling on Biden to cancel a withdrawal Trump championed throughout his presidency and negotiated with the Taliban before leaving office. Similarly, few, if any, are calling on Biden to redeploy military forces to Afghanistan indefinitely to root out and extinguish jihadist terrorist groups such as ISIS-K, which are threatening U.S. national security.
That deafening silence suggests the crisis in Afghanistan crisis is doing little to revive the clout of the traditional foreign policy hawk that held sway inside the Republican Party for years, but who in the Trump era have played second fiddle to the populist, noninterventionists. “They don’t object to the pullout; they object to the way it has been handled,” said Tony Fabrizio, a GOP pollster who previously advised the former president.
Veteran Republican strategists say the party’s elected officials and aspiring presidential candidates are responding to their voters, who take their cues from Trump, now more than ever.
“This is Donald Trump’s party. He is who all the activists care about, and they run the party,” explained a Republican operative who has been active in party politics for three decades. “Even if he runs and loses in 2024, he will still control a lot of the emotion of our activists. So, I think it is very difficult to have this kind of debate inside the party.”
The United States invaded Afghanistan nearly 20 years ago after the ruling Taliban refused to turn over Osama bin Laden and other members of al Qaeda behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Although the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan provided a forward operating base against terrorists and prevented the country from becoming another breeding ground for threats against the homeland, Americans of both parties tired of the war.
Biden’s handling of the exit from Afghanistan has come under fire from Democrats as well as Republicans. But neither the disturbing images of the withdrawal, reports of the Taliban reinstituting their brutal theocracy over the people of Afghanistan, nor Thursday’s terrorist attack that left more than a dozen American troops dead, appears to have changed public opinion about the withdrawal itself.
In the Republican Party, where opposition to withdrawal might take hold, the few who have counseled against the policy, such as Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, are at odds with Trump and lack influence with the GOP base. Meanwhile, some GOP insiders say that what the former president and grassroots Republicans rejected was nation-building and the spread of democracy. Projecting American power, they say, never fell out of favor.
Indeed, a Republican operative who conducted focus groups on the issue of withdrawal prior to this month’s events in Afghanistan said GOP primary voters were skeptical of Biden’s plan to pull out all troops by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“Even when I reminded them that this was Trump’s idea,” this operative said, “they would counter with something like: ‘Well, he kept troops there while he was president, and he always listened to his generals, and I think he would do things differently.’”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
That latent attitude among Republican voters is why some Republicans believe the hawks in their party are bound to make a comeback as national security challenges arise and frustration with Biden’s handling of foreign policy grows on the Right.
“Typically, Republicans remember why conservatism is hawkish — at the precise moment it becomes essential,” a GOP strategist said. “The doves and isolationists in our party are a minority, but they get noisy when it’s a luxury we can afford.”
