Biden overlooks reality in his Afghan decision

Afghanistan has descended into chaos in the wake of the U.S. troop withdrawal. According to President Joe Biden in his Monday address, we were prepared for chaos — just not the speed.

In his speech, Biden was big on underscoring his administration’s readiness to deal with the fallout from America’s exit from the 20-year war, whatever it may be. We were on top of our game — it’s the Afghans who dropped the ball.

This is a far cry from Biden’s view a month ago.

As Newsweek reported, Biden, after making a statement about the U.S. mission in Afghanistan concluding on Aug. 31, was asked: “Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?”

He replied: “No, it is not.” He doubled down during that July 8 conference: “There’s going to be no circumstances where you’re going to see people being lifted off the roof of a U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan.”

If this is what being prepared for “every possible contingency” looks like, we shudder to picture a slapdash operation.

He inherited the Afghanistan conundrum, Biden was quick to point out. He’s the fourth president to preside over the war. Both true — however, the length and layers of the conflict should have informed an exit strategy cognizant of the Taliban’s ability to swarm, and the country’s inability to fend them off.

It’s one thing not to understand your enemy, it’s another not to understand your allies.

Tribal and ethnic conflicts have been waged in Afghanistan for hundreds of years. One of the biggest, as Henrik Larsen, author of “NATO’s Democratic Retrenchment: Hegemony after the Return of History’” wrote in The Hill, is that between the Pashtuns (from whom the Taliban emerged) and the non-Pashtuns (including Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras).

The problem with U.S. and NATO efforts to promote democratic elections for a unified government was lost in the weeds because neither ethnic group had reason to view the Afghan central state as legitimate. The U.S. and NATO didn’t seem to address the elephant in the room, namely how much Pashtuns and other tribes actually supported the Taliban and found their cause legitimate. Many Afghans viewed the Taliban’s networks legitimate in that they could provide services, legal stability, and limit the arbitrary power of warlords.

Biden spoke of the power and importance of diplomacy in tackling global conflict in his Monday speech, but unless our efforts on this front include a solid grasp of the history, tradition and political landscape of a country, it will be for naught.

The president hailed our initial mission, to get those responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks on America. With the capture and execution of Osama bin Laden in 2011, we did that.

Many veterans of the war in Afghanistan are reeling as the Taliban recaptures the country, and questioning the value of their efforts.

Mike Jason, a retired Army colonel who served in Afghanistan, told NPR: “You know, was it all for nothing? Was it for the values that we champion, you know, in our institution, in the Army? And so we try to find ways of answering and dealing with it and processing it while watching it in real time.”

Those who’ve lost loved ones, or who help those who returned from the war with devastating injuries, can find little solace in Biden’s words.

When a Taliban-led Afghanistan becomes an incubator for terrorists looking to harm America, what then? And given our recent actions — who would be our ally?