The smoke had hardly cleared from the Pentagon and ruins of the World Trade Center after the September 11, 2001 attacks before Democrats and Republicans began finger pointing: Was George W. Bush to blame for missing the warning signs about Al Qaeda’s plot? Wasn’t Bill Clinton to blame for allowing the safe haven to develop in the first place? The truth is both dropped the ball.
Clinton was more poll-driven than his predecessors. Afghanistan was not a winning issue for him, and so, rather than lead, he preferred to keep the issue out of sight, out of mind. Islamist groups declared their hatred for America, but journalists and policymakers shrugged at what many saw as just a confusing jumble of acronyms with Arabic and Pushtun names thousands of miles away from America. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, meanwhile, deferred to the State Department’s worst instincts to engage the Taliban. Credulous diplomats believed they had convinced the Taliban to quarantine Osama Bin Laden and shutter his terror training camps.
