Blog No. 273. Afghanistan: Withdraw in haste, repent at leisure

On November 17, Acting Secretary of Defense, Chris Miller, announced that American military forces in Afghanistan would be reduced to 2,500 by January 15. That is a reduction from the current force level of 4,500, which itself reflects a reduction from a 13,500 level at the beginning of 2020. The withdrawal announced by Miller was marginally better than the plan Trump had announced by Twitter in October: the removal of all troops by Christmas. The modest improvement apparently resulted from the military convincing Trump that what he had demanded was simply not achievable. 

The reaction on Capitol Hill to Miller’s announcement was notably different from those produced by most Trump pronouncements. As the Washington Post headlined a November 18 article, “Trump allies more outraged than Democrats over his Afghanistan pullout.” For his part, President-Elect Biden has made no comment on the troop withdrawal plan. As a freshly-minted Biden Democrat, I am reluctant to take issue so soon with the President-Elect and my new colleagues. But I am obliged to say that, while the approval or acquiescence by Democrats in the latest withdrawal is not necessarily surprising, it is still disappointing.

The withdrawal may well pave the way for Afghanistan to become once again a base for Islamic terrorists to organize, train and plan attacks. It may also create a humanitarian disaster if the disappearance of American support results in the collapse of the Afghan government and the installation of a Taliban regime. A re-imposition of brutal Taliban rule, particularly on the country’s women and children, will be painful to observe. Finally, it will represent the betrayal of an ally, a far from perfect ally to be sure, but an ally none the less.

The announced reduction in forces, like the previous reductions, follows an agreement with the Taliban reached last February. As Blog No. 250, “Afghanistan: Not a Deal But a Fig Leaf” explained in some detail, that agreement was deeply flawed. It provided for the withdrawal of 8,600 American military forces unconditionally and the remainder conditioned only on decidedly vague commitments by the Taliban. The earlier Blog quoted former National Security Advisor John Bolton: 

If the agreement provides only limited assurance against Afghanistan again becoming a base for terrorist operations, it provides none whatever for the survival of the elected Afghan government or for the preservation of human rights—and women’s rights in particular. Neither phase of the force reductions specified in Part One is connected to success of the negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government and the Taliban and the subject of Afghan human rights receives not so much as a glancing mention anywhere in the document.

Trump, the self-proclaimed master of the Art of the Deal, has now managed to take a bad deal and make it worse. The removal of forces he has ordered goes beyond our obligations under the agreement with the Taliban. Negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban have been essentially going nowhere, and Trump’s reckless action has removed what modest incentive the Taliban had to negotiate in good faith. If the deal with the Taliban was, as I described it, a fig leaf, that fig leaf has now disappeared to reveal the naked ugliness of our surrender.

Describing our presence in Afghanistan as engaging in an “endless war,” as Trump and many Democrats have been wont to do, is a misleading overstatement. Although the military continues to provide air support for Afghan forces, U.S. troops are not involved in ground combat. With NATO allies, the U.S. primarily trains and advises Afghan forces. Nevertheless, this relatively minimal effort is crucial. Afghan officials say that without American military support, security could deteriorate so drastically that Afghanistan could fall under Taliban control or erupt in a multi-sided civil war in which strongmen around the country and Islamist militants fight for territory. According to Afghanistan’s top security official, national security adviser Hamdullah Mohib, the Taliban “believe that without U.S. support they will overrun all our provinces and the government in a month.”

While I am frequently not in sync with either the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, I think that on this occasion they have it right. In a November 16, editorial, the Journal observed that “The 2,500 looks like a number pulled out of a Pentagon helmet as an arbitrary alternative to the disastrous total pullout Mr. Trump was contemplating last week.” The editorial went on to quote at length the cogent analysis of Senator McConnell. As the Journal reported:

“A rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan now would hurt our allies and delight the people who wish us harm. Violence affecting Afghans is still rampant. The Taliban is not abiding by the conditions of the so-called peace deal,” Mr. McConnell said. “The consequences of a premature American exit would likely be even worse than President Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, which fueled the rise of ISIS and a new round of global terrorism. It would be reminiscent of the humiliating American departure from Saigon in 1975.”

The Republican leader added: “We’d be abandoning our partners in Afghanistan, the brave Afghans who are fighting the terrorists and destroying the government’s leverage in their talks with the Taliban to end the fighting. Our retreat would embolden the Taliban, especially the deadly Haqqani wing, and risk plunging Afghan women and girls back into what they experienced in the 1990s. It would hand a weakened and scattered al Qaeda a big propaganda victory and a renewed safe haven for plotting attacks against America. And it would be welcome news to Iran, which has long provided arms and support to the Taliban and explicitly seeks our retreat from the Middle East.”

Within the administration, then Secretary of Defense Esper reportedly sent a classified memorandum to President Trump in early November expressing the unanimous recommendation of military and civilian leadership that the US not draw down its troop presence in Afghanistan any further until conditions were met: reduction in violence, progress at the negotiating table and a credible pledge from the Taliban to publicly renounce al Qaeda, among other terrorist groups. That memorandum appears to have been a major factor in the dismissal of Esper and other senior Pentagon officials.

A prominent alumnus of the administration, H.R. McMaster, Trump’s former National Security Adviser, offered a searing indictment on Face the Nation:

[I]f the Taliban establishes control of large parts of- of Afghanistan, give safe haven and support base to terrorist organizations who want to commit mass murder against us on the scale of 9/11, we will be far less safe and- and vulnerable to these groups. And I think what happened is the prioritization of withdrawal over our interests led to us actually empowering the Taliban… Don’t- don’t- don’t make this assumption that there is this bold line between the Taliban and these other terrorist organizations. Hey, we saw today with these rocket attacks in Kabul and- and the images of- of hundreds of young girls fleeing these- these rocket attacks. We saw it with, you know, an attack on a maternity hospital where they gunned down pregnant mothers and- and killed infants. We saw on the attack of- on the American University in- in Afghanistan. I mean, what does power sharing with the Taliban look like? Does that mean every other girl school is bulldozed? Does that mean there are mass executions in the soccer stadium every other Saturday? I think it’s- it’s abhorrent what we’re doing. And- and I hope that- that a Biden administration will reassess based again on what’s in it for us.

Democrats have long supported an exit from Afghanistan while expressing relatively little concern or analysis for what we may leave behind. During the Democratic primaries, Governor Hickenlooper alone cautioned against the human consequences of withdrawal:

I look at it as a humanitarian issue. If we completely pull our troops out of there, you’re going to see a humanitarian disaster. We have troops in over 400 different locations around the world. Most of them are small, they’re peacekeeping, they’re not greatly at risk. We’re going to have to be in Afghanistan. Look at the progress that has happened in that country. We’re going to turn our backs and walk away from people that have risked their lives to help us and build a different future for Afghanistan and that part of the world?

A withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan will necessarily lead to the withdrawal of NATO forces as well. The Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg issued a blunt warning against a precipitous departure:

We now face a difficult decision. We have been in Afghanistan for almost 20 years, and no NATO ally wants to stay any longer than necessary. But at the same time, the price for leaving too soon or in an uncoordinated way could be very high. Afghanistan risks becoming once again a platform for international terrorists to plan and organize attacks on our homelands. And ISIS could rebuild in Afghanistan the terror caliphate it lost in Syria and Iraq.

Joe Biden has a considerable history of being unenthusiastic about our involvement in Afghanistan. The subject did not come up in his debates with Trump, and since the election, he has been understandably been preoccupied with other priorities. He will not, however, be able to avoid the problem indefinitely. According to a report in Newsweek, Biden’s Secretary of State designate, Anthony Blinken has indicated that “a Biden administration would be more cautious than Trump, who has pushed ahead on bringing American troops home despite warnings from aides that such moves could undermine U.S. national security.”

Yet, if troops in Afghanistan have been reduced to 2,500 before Biden is inaugurated, it may be too late for caution. The Wall Street Journal offered a “hope” that “the generals can follow Mr. Trump’s misguided orders in a way that offers Mr. Biden more options than retreat after he’s in the White House.” I join the Journal in that hope, but I am not optimistic.