I wanted to pass along the frank assessment of Afghanistan from David Ignatius in his most recent Washington Post column:
The weird part is that military victory was never really the United States’ goal. We were playing for a tie — a stalemate that weakened the Taliban enough that it would accept a diplomatic solution. We started trying to negotiate with the Taliban back in 2009 when the legendary Richard C. Holbrooke was special envoy, and serious talks were underway two years later under his successor, Marc Grossman.
President Barack Obama announced the official end of the United States’ combat mission in 2014, but it continued. President Donald Trump briefly tried for a win, hoping the enormous explosive device known as the “mother of all bombs,†would intimidate the Taliban. When it didn’t, he gave up and had his envoy Zalmay Khalilzad negotiate a peace deal. Trump was too worried about the risks to actually pull out the troops — but President Biden, who had been dubious about the Afghanistan mission, rejected the advice of his advisers and pulled the plug. U.S. combat troops finally left, and in six weeks, the tower of illusion crumbled.
Biden is being flayed both for his decision and its sloppy execution. Many of us had warned that by withdrawing the small remaining force too quickly, without a transition plan, he was unwisely ending a low-cost insurance policy against the disaster now unfolding. Biden owns the final decision, for better or worse.
But the hard truth is that this failure is shared by a generation of military commanders and policymakers, who let occasional tactical successes in a counterterrorism mission become a proxy for a strategy that never was. And it was subtly abetted by journalists who were scratching our heads wondering if it would work, but let the senior officials continue their magical thinking.
He continues with a timeline of activities in Afghanistan cover January 2008 through 2014. Here’s my assessment. There’s an enormous amount of blame to spread around. Putting “boots on the ground” and beginning a strategy of nation-building and counter-insurgency is on George W. Bush. Providing too-optimistic and glossy assessments is on the general staff and our intelligence organizations. There was a narrow window in 2013 when President Obama could have withdrawn our troops from Afghanistan. His failure to do so is on him. President Biden’s handling of that withdrawal is on him. Had President Trump been re-elected he might be facing even more vehement criticism for withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan than President Biden is experiencing now. We’ll never know.
The facts that we need to get our heads around but I doubt we ever will are that
- Nation-building in Afghanistan was never possible.
- Afghanistan was never going to be able to defend itself.
- A successful counter-insurgency strategy requires a commitment to staying forever.
- Out-waiting the Taliban was never a practical strategy.
- However well-planned or executed our withdrawal from Afghanistan was never going to be anything other than a debacle.
There is a saying, the sense of which goes back millennia: success has many fathers but failure is an orphan. There’s another statement that only goes back about 40 years: the only way to win the game is not to play. That about sums it up.
I think your observations are largely correct. Just a couple points.
Yes, the initial nation building illusion is on Bush. He owns that. We can only hope a lesson has been learned. I doubt it.
Some cheerleaders want to conveniently downplay that 9 of 20 years were under Obama/Biden. Last time I looked thats about 50% of the time.
If Trump was in office and pulled out he might have received great criticism, but it would have been from the Max Boots and deep staters of the world. That’s why they hated him. A pox on them.
It depends on what the definition of debacle is. It was never going to be elegant. But it could have been better managed. The execution was high school level and the full magnitude is just now becoming fully apparent. And it appears to have been directed by Biden over the objections of advisors. Announcing the date was dumb. Not providing for exit of what is now estimated to be 10,000+ people was reckless. If you think this is an isolated and unavoidable Biden failure, just look at our southern border.
Practically anything could be better managed. Tax cuts could have been better managed. Border enforcement could have been better managed.
What concerns me is not just that it’s not better managed but that’s there’s no process improvement, at least none visible to me. I think that government has actually been performing worse over the last 2-30 years than it did during the previous. That has less to do with overreach than with plain bureaucratic incompetence.
If Trump had been re-elected he would be facing more vehement criticism than Biden is now…well, simply because he’s a Republican with the name Trump. This would be the case even if the drawdown had been better managed, aligning with the original departure plans, including keeping Bagram Air force Base open for a more secure, measured departure.
In the meantime, while people continue to opine that getting out of Afghanistan would have been nasty, no matter who was at the helm of the presidency, such an excuse merely softens the dismal actions taken by the current president. The fact that Biden refused to listen to his advisors, or to the intel reports describing the inability of the Afghan military to hold their own against the Taliban (a fact that Biden lied about in his early July remarks), is the crux of why this departure went south, fast. Couple this with Biden’s slow response to address the chaos in Afghanistan, blaming most of it on “others,†when he did, following inauthentic “the buck stops at the president†comment. Biden even ignored the Afghan’s govt. reasoned request to hold off until winter, in leaving the country, because the Taliban don’t like to fight in the cold. He refused, going ahead with his summer “wheels-up†plans.
Stupid man!
The current ongoing exit debacle is plainly on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, especially Thoroughly Modern Milley. They rejected Trump’s deal with the Taliban, and stone-walled Trump’s order to remove our troops by May 1st. They did no, as in NO, planning for a removal whatsoever. They thought they could out last Trump and bend Biden to their will. They failed in that, and yet they still did no exit planning. Hence the people falling off our planes and getting run over by them.
Our military is openly mutinous. LtC Vindman gave the game away in his testimony to Congress when he said that Presidents DO NOT have the power to set foreign policy. That power, he said, resides in the permanent bureaucrats. And of course he sabotaged Trump whenever he could.
Clearly Vindman and Milley should have been court-martialed, given a dishonorable discharge, and imprisoned in Leavenworth. Instead the Army tried to promote Vindman.
We are very close to getting a military dictatorship in this country. Some President soon will have to bring the generals and admirals to heal
“What concerns me is not just that it’s not better managed but that’s there’s no process improvement…â€
As is becoming more apparent almost by the hour, this was uniquely incompetent. Joe a Biden never was up to the task. Nothing in his career indicates so. In his impaired state it is all the more clear. And let’s not even start with Kamala Harris.
Process improvements is a longer term phenomenon. As Bob remarks, over time the bureaucracies have stepped into leadership voids in the executive and legislative branches. Handing out goodies has become the role of the elected officials. Routine policy resides in the bureaus. (Trump recognized this and presented a threat. As I’ve said repeatedly, therefore he had to be destroyed. ). Only the very big calls remain with the president. Biden botched this one, as his former teammate predicted.
Sounds a bit extreme to me but I do think they should have quietly found reasons to retire. In particular I don’t like Ukrainians being put in charge of U. S. policy towards Ukraine.
Taliban is going to be needing spare parts and ammo for the equipment we gifted them. Since they won’t be shooting at our guys anymore, sell them what they need.
With a little luck, they could end up distracting the Iranians for a few years.
This is the greatest catastrophe ever. What is the current death count of Americans killed by the Taliban in the last few days?
Steve
I second what Bob S said about Vindman and Milley. Scoundrels, both of them!
There are currently a reported 15,000 American civilians in Afghanistan being advised to “shelter in place”, as access to the airport is denied by Taliban forces.
As much as some Americans hate their own, it’s a little early to step up to bat for the Taliban and their known tender mercies.
Keep trying to put lipstick on that pig, steve. As always, you beclown yourself. You were saying something about cultists?
They also have the power and the right to hold war crimes trials and execute those civilians and collaborators we failed to evacuate.
Maybe more likely they’ll want money, but they are true fundamentalists, you never know.
The U.K. is sending people in to collect their people. Joe Biden’s military is saying they can’t guarantee trapped American’s safety.
Answer the question Drew. Worst catastrophe ever. Must be a lot of Americans dead.
Steve
Steve, I know ideology often resembles cataracts, by putting a film over the eyes. That’s what must be happening to you, regarding the dire circumstances hovering over those left in the wake of the Taliban take-over.
Citizens are being randomly killed. The perimeter of the airport is guarded by the Taliban – meaning they have control over the evacuations. The Taliban are parading around the vast amount of arms abandoned by the U.S., and confiscating arms from the Afghan citizenry. Everyday, the terrorists seem to be building on a foundation of absolute control. Given more time, the lives of those left behind will fall more into the category of hostages and/or victims. In the meantime we will really never know the real number of lives lost during this unfortunate transition of power, giving Afghanistan over to the a Taliban on a silver platter.
Finally, Steve, Biden’s embassy left docs having all the names, addresses, phone numbers of people helping the U.S. – instead of destroying them. The Taliban, IOW, have a tally of who to have eyes on, to imprison or kill.
Stupid, Stupid incompetence…..not protecting those who had our backs.