Monday Morning

   The fall of the Afghan government to Taliban insurgents over the weekend occurred with shocking speed. The Afghan president fled the country on Saturday and Taliban flooded the capital with little resistance on Sunday. The collapse of the Afghan government after twenty years of American support should prompt deep introspection among presidents, diplomats, and the military. The exercise should not be designed to assign blame but to ensure that future commitments of American military personnel and aid is more effective. We owe that to the American troops who served in Afghanistan, to the families of those killed and wounded, and to the Americans who funded the twenty-year effort.

          We should never forget that Al-Qaeda used Afghanistan as its base of operations in the 9/11 attacks.  The Taliban regime in Afghanistan crumbled two months after the U.S. led an international operation against the Taliban beginning in late September 2001. For the next nineteen years, the U.S. led a “reconstruction effort” to create and fortify civilian rule in Afghanistan. See generally, The Council on Foreign Relations, “Timeline: The U.S. War in Afghanistan.” During the period of hostilities and reconstruction, more than 2,300 U.S. military personnel lost their lives in Afghanistan. In the 2020 presidential campaign, both Biden and Trump called for the immediate end to “America’s longest war.”  President Trump negotiated a deal directly with the Taliban to withdraw all U.S. troops from the country by May 1, 2021. (The deal was a surprise to the Afghan government, which had not been included in the negotiations.) See NPR, “Trump's Deal To End War In Afghanistan Leaves Biden With 'A Terrible Situation'.”

          President Biden adhered to the timeline for withdrawal negotiated by Trump (although Biden extended the timeline for withdrawal by four months). U.S. military commanders opposed Trump’s agreement with the Taliban and Biden’s decision to proceed with the withdrawal. As is the president’s prerogative, Biden overruled the advice of military commanders. The ensuing withdrawal has gone poorly and may deteriorate further.  

          American voters strongly support withdrawal from Afghanistan. Despite that support, blame for the chaos following the withdrawal will be laid at Biden’s feet. See NYTimes, “Analysis: Fairly or unfairly, the final act in the American experiment in Afghanistan falls on President Biden.” It is the unique burden of American presidents to have their legacies defined by wars they did not start or end. Joe Biden can’t escape the responsibility for the chaotic ending of the conflict in Afghanistan—nor should he attempt to do so.

          If there were errors in executing the withdrawal that were caused by undue pressure on military commanders, Biden must own those errors. But the decision to withdraw was the right one, just as the decision to attack Al-Qaeda in its safe havens was the correct one. We will never know whether delaying another six months would have made any difference. In the end, the sudden collapse was precipitated by mass defections among Afghan military that have been occurring over the year at the local level. See WaPo, “Afghanistan’s military collapse: Illicit deals with Taliban and mass desertions.” For those who criticize Biden’s decision to withdraw, a fair question is, “Compared to what?”

          I don’t intend to make excuses for the execution of the withdrawal, but we should also recognize that Biden acted to prevent further loss of life among U.S. military personnel in a conflict that did not appear to have any prospect of a successful conclusion. Biden made a difficult decision and appears ready to defend it in the face criticism—fair and unfair. See WaPo, “Defiant and defensive, a president known for empathy takes a cold-eyed approach to Afghanistan debacle.”

          Most importantly, we cannot lose sight of the fact that hundreds of thousands of American men and women responded to the call of duty after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Thousands lost their lives, thousands more suffer from permanent physical and psychological injuries. Their patriotism is undiminished by the current situation in Afghanistan. Indeed, America has been safer over their last two decades because they responded to the call of duty. The worst outcome of the sudden collapse of the Afghan government would be to lose sight of the sacrifice of the men and women who volunteered to protect us. We cannot let that happen, come what may in Afghanistan.