Blog No. 300. The Afghanistan Debacle: The Hard Questions Part II

President Biden’s speech on August 31 marked the end of America’s presence in Afghanistan, along with our NATO allies. The manner of our departure had been widely viewed as chaotic, and widely criticized. Many attacks from Republicans reeked of hypocrisy, given their embrace of Donald Trump’s disastrous agreement with the Taliban only last year. Nevertheless, criticism came from many quarters and it doubtless accounted for the defiant tone of Biden’s remarks.

The President is now attempting to turn his attention to other urgent matters, including the continuing pandemic and the fate of his infrastructure package in Congress. It is not clear, however, that the “forever war” is truly ended, particularly if the war is seen more broadly as one against the jihadism of Islamic extremists, in which Afghanistan was, and may again become, only one battlefield. We may wish no war with the jihadists, but it seems unlikely that they are done with us. While Afghanistan has begun to recede from the center of the public’s attention, at least for now, hard questions remain. Biden’s address raised and left open a number of them to which he may have to respond at some point. A few in particular are noted below with Biden’s remarks in italics and questions in bold.

The Remarks and Questions

1. In April, I made the decision to end this war. As part of that decision, we set the date of August 31st for American troops to withdraw. The assumption was that more than 300,000 Afghan National Security Forces that we had trained over the past two decades and equipped would be a strong adversary in their civil wars with the Taliban.

That assumption — that the Afghan government would be able to hold on for a period of time beyond military drawdown — turned out not to be accurate.

Actually, Biden’s April 14 statement referred to a withdrawal by September 11 (a questionable use of that anniversary). In any case, one may ask the basis on which that date or the date of August 31 was selected. In particular, what military advice did Biden receive as to what would have to be done, and could be done by either date? Did he take into account the need for a large evacuation of Afghans? How large? Did he consider the likely loss to the Taliban of tens of billions of dollars of military equipment?

What was the basis for the “assumption” that “the Afghan government would be able to hold on for a period of time beyond military drawdown”? If that was the judgment of the intelligence community and the Pentagon, has Biden sought to investigate how they got it so wrong? Did Biden and his advisers take into account the impact of Trump’s withdrawal agreement with the Taliban, and Biden’s own announcement, on both the morale and capacity of Afghan security forces?

2. Our Operation Allied Rescue [Allies Refuge] ended up getting more than 5,500 Americans out. We got out thousands of citizens and diplomats from those countries that went into Afghanistan with us to get bin Laden.  We got out locally employed staff of the United States Embassy and their families, totaling roughly 2,500 people. We got thousands of Afghan translators and interpreters and others, who supported the United States, out as well.

Biden went on to estimate that 100 to 200 Americans who wish to leave Afghanistan still remain, but offered no estimate as to how many “Afghan translators and interpreters and others, who supported the United States” remain? Is there any such estimate? How many can we realistically hope to extricate safely from the Taliban’s control?

3. My predecessor, the former President, signed an agreement with the Taliban to remove U.S. troops by May the 1st, just months after I was inaugurated.

Here, as in his April statement, Biden cited the Trump agreement as a reason for his withdrawal decision. That raises the question of what, if anything, Biden would have done differently in the absence of that agreement. Was any consideration given to attempting to renegotiate the agreement, particularly in light of the Taliban’s failure to negotiate with the Afghan government and to cut their ties to Al Qaeda?

4. So we were left with a simple decision: Either follow through on the commitment made by the last administration and leave Afghanistan, or say we weren’t leaving and commit another tens of thousands more troops going back to war.

That was the choice — the real choice — between leaving or escalating.

Was that the “real choice”? Biden’s formulation appears contrary the advice of Pentagon leaders according to published reports. Did Biden in fact receive advice from any military leaders that staying in Afghanistan would require us to “commit another tens of thousands more troops going back to war?” If so, from whom? If not, what was his conclusion based on?

5. Now, some say we should have started mass evacuations sooner and “Couldn’t this have be done — have been done in a more orderly manner?” I respectfully disagree.

Imagine if we had begun evacuations in June or July, bringing in thousands of American troops and evacuating more than 120,000 people in the middle of a civil war. There still would have been a rush to the airport, a breakdown in confidence and control of the government, and it still would have been a very difficult and dangerous mission.

Was there no difference between an evacuation before the Taliban entered Kabul on August 15 and the evacuation that took place after that event? Wouldn’t an evacuation begun in June have allowed the evacuation of tens of thousands more of our Afghan allies and dozens, perhaps hundreds, more of Americans?

6. Remember why we went to Afghanistan in the first place? Because we were attacked by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda on September 11th, 2001, and they were based in Afghanistan.

We delivered justice to bin Laden on May 2nd, 2011 — over a decade ago. Al Qaeda was decimated.

We succeeded in what we set out to do in Afghanistan over a decade ago. Then we stayed for another decade.  It was time to end this war. 

Did the killing of Bin Laden really end the threat of Al Qaeda—or other Islamic jihadists—operating from Afghanistan?

7. And let me be clear: We will continue to support the Afghan people through diplomacy, international influence, and humanitarian aid. We’ll continue to push for regional diplomacy and engagement to prevent violence and instability. We’ll continue to speak out for basic rights of the Afghan people, especially women and girls, as we speak out for women and girls all around the globe. And I’ve been clear that human rights will be the center of our foreign policy.

Is there any reason to believe that our “speaking out” for “basic rights of the Afghan people, especially women and girls,” will have any effect whatever on Taliban behavior? Our presence in Afghanistan, for all its faults and failures, did result in huge and measurable gains for many Afghans, particularly in safety and opportunities for women and girls. While seeking such gains was not the reason for our going into Afghanistan, shouldn’t their loss now carry some weight in assessing the consequences of our withdrawal?

The full text of Biden’s remarks is here. Readers who peruse it will, I suspect, have additional questions.