President Joe Biden’s exit from the Afghanistan War has been marred by rapid Taliban gains that threaten to turn the fulfillment of a popular campaign promise into a political liability.
Administration officials say their hands were tied with an imperfect deal negotiated by their predecessors that they wouldn’t have made. But critics fault the speed and process of the withdrawal, questioning the Biden team’s efforts to achieve a compromise between Afghan and Taliban forces while major cities fall to insurgent commanders.
By Wednesday night, Biden and his top national security advisers found themselves mulling the deteriorating circumstances inside the country. Within hours, the president, who has stood resolute by his decision since announcing it in April, called for troops to help pull U.S. Embassy staff and Afghan allies out. The decision came under fire almost immediately for seeming to capitulate to Taliban forces. A White House official did not respond to a request for comment.
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“The Biden Administration has reduced U.S. officials to pleading with Islamic extremists to spare our Embassy as they prepare to overrun Kabul,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement. The Kentucky Republican has called the negotiations “diplomatic carrots” and likened the advances to “the humiliating fall of Saigon in 1975.”
One analyst surmised Biden’s decision was a move to deflect criticism, telling the Washington Examiner that there was “no reason to evacuate [the U.S. Embassy] this early.”
“At this point, I think they’re trying to front-load the bad press,” this person said. “I agreed with the withdrawal, but this has been a s***show.”
On Friday, Biden was briefed in Wilmington, Delaware, “by members of his national security team on the ongoing efforts to safely drawdown the civilian footprint in Afghanistan,” the White House said.
The withdrawal continues to be a good political move for Biden, whose top advisers have promised to deliver a “foreign policy for the middle class” that will end “forever wars” and prioritize middle-class economic interests.
A July 6-26 poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs showed that 70% of voters surveyed said combat troops should leave the country by Sept. 11. According to a Quinnipiac University poll in May, 62% approved of Biden’s Sept. 11 deadline, up 4 percentage points from April, when an Economist/YouGov poll registered 58% support.
Biden “would pay a political price” if he were to move away from his decision, said Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser at Concerned Veterans for America. Such a reversal “would anger not only the most progressive in his party, but would open up lines of attack from Republicans who believe in a more restrained foreign policy,” he said.
For years, Biden has proven steadfast in his commitment to leave the war behind, though as a senator, he did join overwhelming bipartisan majorities in voting to authorize the use of force following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But criticism through the week has grown piercing, heaping blame on an administration that is keenly attuned to public pressure.
“It is a deal that we inherited,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said this week, charging that the administration was hamstrung by former President Donald Trump and that to violate his agreement would prompt Taliban attacks on American troops. “It was preordained that a conditions-based withdrawal was essentially taken off the table.”
Biden’s Defense officials said the conditions were partly inherited too. “We saw the Taliban making advances even before the Biden administration came into office,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said at a briefing Friday. “We saw the Taliban making advances at the district level before the president made his decision.”
“The Trump administration made a bad deal if you look at it in a vacuum, but it was a deal that reflected the bad dynamics on the ground — a bad deal that reflects a bad situation,” said Adam Weinstein, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft who served as a Marine and deployed to Afghanistan in 2012. “The Biden administration went through with the rest of withdrawal because it decided it’s in its interest.”
Trump, for his part, is pointing the finger at his successor for the “unacceptable” Taliban surge.
Weinstein called it “baffling that the Taliban felt so confident to just enter provincial capitals” in the country while U.S. air power was still inside, with Biden and Trump each carrying responsibility for this.
“What is true for both administrations is they could have executed their withdrawal in a way that put more pressure on the Taliban by at least creating the illusion that actions would have consequences,” he said.
“When we look back at this in 40 years, I think people will say that the withdrawal was the right decision but that the execution was incredibly poor. But why would the execution be good? The way we ran the 20-year war was absolutely incoherent,” he said. “Why would the withdrawal be coherent? It’s just an extension of a policy that’s been a mess from day one.”
Retired Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis made waves upon returning from Afghanistan in 2012, when he accused top U.S. generals of misleading the public over their failures in the country. Davis said that while a conditions-based withdrawal was not necessary, Washington needed to afford Afghanistan “18, maybe 24 months of continued service so that everybody could catch their breath.”
“It would give the Afghan people time to come to grips with what they’re about to be responsible for before they had to actually do it on their own. When Biden made the decision, there was no time at all,” he said.
Americans delivered mixed messages to their Afghan counterparts in advance of Biden’s decision, telling them privately, “‘Don’t worry about it. We’re going to stay,’” Davis said. “So, when the announcement came, they were shocked and caught flat-footed. And then, of course, we immediately start leaving.”
The Biden administration has urged Afghan and Taliban leaders to advance a peace agreement, but the prospects for this appear to be waning. On Friday, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, said in a statement “on behalf of regional and international stakeholders” that advances toward a political solution needed to accelerate “as a matter of great urgency.”
Taliban forces have captured the country’s second- and third-largest cities, Kandahar and Herat, and 14 of 34 provincial capitals, accelerating their advances just weeks before the United States is set to complete its military mission.
“Let me put it this way. Insurgent groups that capture two provincial capitals in one day, and then two major cities the next day, they’re not ready to go to the negotiating table,” Weinstein said. “You don’t negotiate when you’re winning faster than you ever could have dreamed of.”
Biden has stood by his decision, reiterating this week that it is well past time to leave behind the two-decade, trillion-dollar conflict that has claimed thousands of American lives.
“Look, we spent over a trillion dollars over 20 years. We trained and equipped with modern equipment over 300,000 Afghan forces. And Afghan leaders have to come together,” Biden said Tuesday. “But they’ve got to want to fight.”
He added, “I think they’re beginning to realize they’ve got to come together politically at the top and — but we’re going to continue to keep our commitment. But I do not regret my decision.”
Biden has been skeptical of the Afghanistan mission for more than a decade. While vice president in 2009, he sent President Barack Obama a handwritten memo over Thanksgiving arguing against committing more troops to the country. He maintained that a continued U.S. troop presence did not serve American interests on the campaign trail.
When asked in a CBS interview whether he should bear the responsibility for an outcome in which the Taliban “ends up back in control and women end up losing their rights,” Biden said no.
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“Do I bear responsibility? Zero responsibility. The responsibility I have is to protect America’s national self-interest and not put our women and men in harm’s way to try to solve every single problem in the world by use of force,” Biden responded. “That’s my responsibility as president. And that’s what I’ll do as president.”
