Questions, criticism over biggest crisis of Biden’s term
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Thursday confronted the most acute crisis of his young presidency, the deaths of at least 13 Americans in Afghanistan that threatened to undermine his credentials as a seasoned global leader and a steady hand.
In emotional comments at the White House, Biden made clear that the attack would not cause him to rethink his strategy. Rather, he said, it reinforced his belief that the war must end and that the evacuation must proceed. He framed the deaths as the sacrifice of heroes performing a noble mission, and he suggested that any move to cut short the evacuation of Americans and their Afghan supporters would amount to caving to the terrorists.
“I bear responsibility for, fundamentally, all
that has happened,” Biden said, addressing the nation hours after the deadly attack. His voice broke as he invoked Scripture, history and personal loss to decry the double suicide bombing at the entrance to the Kabul airport, which stands as the last small acreage controlled by the United States in Afghanistan nearly 20 years after the war began.
Biden promised to track down the killers responsible for the massacre, who he suggested were members of the terrorist group ISIS-K. “To those who carried out this attack: We will not forgive,” he said. “We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.”
Still, the mass killing immediately opened Biden up to criticism, especially from Republicans, that he was responsible for the deaths of the young Americans, either because of the hurried pace of the evacuation or, more fundamentally, because his decision to pull out of Afghanistan was a mistake in the first place. Critics also seized on the tragedy to challenge one of the central messages of Biden’s presidency — that he is a competent, seasoned leader who, unlike his predecessor, knows how to protect Americans. Public support for the president has been falling in many polls, and it may take time to show whether he can maintain his image as an able president with solid instincts.
At least two Republican senators quickly called for Biden’s resignation or impeachment. “It’s time for accountability, starting with those whose failed planning allowed these attacks to occur,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said in a statement. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., added, “It is now painfully clear he has neither the will nor capacity to lead. He must resign.”
The most vocal criticism on the Democratic side came from Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who wondered whether Taliban guards had failed by allowing the ISIS bombers get so close to the Kabul airport. “One thing is clear: We can’t trust the Taliban with Americans’ security,” Menendez said.
The killings clearly marked a pivotal moment in Biden’s presidency and an episode that is likely to be part of his legacy. Biden keeps a tally of U.S. service members who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan on a card in his breast pocket, and now, for the first time, that tally will include some who lost their lives on his watch.
Biden directly blamed ISIS-K for the attack, suggesting that the United States could quickly identify individual leaders and punish them.
He spoke from the East Room of the White House toward the end of a day that will go down as the darkest of his early presidency, as a 78-year-old president whose life has been repeatedly marked by tragedy was now taking responsibility for another tragedy. The deaths marked the realization of the worst-case scenario that has hung over the president’s order for the military to withdraw from the United States’ two-decade war in Afghanistan. wwBiden stressed that it was always clear the mission would be dangerous, and he acknowledged that there might be furtherer attacks. That is why he wants to end the evacuation by Tuesday, he said, even while many Republicans and Democrats are urging him to extend the deadline.
Under questioning from reporters, Biden forcefully reiterated his rationale for pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan after 20 years. He noted that President Donald Trump had negotiated a deal with the Taliban to withdraw American forces. If he had reversed that agreement, Biden said, he would have had to pour thousands more American troops into Afghanistan to secure the country.
“I have never been of the view that we should be sacrificing American lives to try to establish a democratic government in Afghanistan, a country that has never once in its entire history been a united country and is made up — and I don’t mean this in a derogatory way — of different tribes who have never, ever, ever gotten along with one another,” Biden said.
The deadly attack ratchets up the pressure around the Kabul airport for the next few days, as the U.S. military works feverishly to finish the evacuation by Tuesday. Some U.S. allies announced Thursday that they were ending their own evacuation efforts, and Democrats and Republicans have called on Biden to extend the exit deadline.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials expect ISIS-K to try to launch further attacks and are counting in part on the Taliban to help thwart such assaults. After Thursday’s attack, some critics questioned the notion of trusting the Taliban, the fundamentalist group that now controls the country.
Biden responded that he does not trust the Taliban but is counting on its leaders’ desire to help American forces finish their mission by month’s end so that the U.S. will leave the country.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration remains committed to extracting from Afghanistan all Americans who wish to leave. The State Department suggested on Thursday that fewer than 1,000 such Americans remained in the country. Unlike the numbing crisis of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 630,000 Americans, the shock of Thursday’s attack was acute and appeared to take many Americans by surprise.
And it is tied more closely to decisions made by Biden. Biden’s Afghanistan pullout plan had already spiraled into chaos this month when the Taliban quickly ousted the U.S.-backed government, blindsiding a White House that prides itself on orderly planning.
Thursday’s carnage, which also killed dozens of Afghan civilians, further isolated Biden from global and domestic allies, many of whom have been critical of the speed of the withdrawal and of the president’s sticking to a Tuesday deadline that many of them regard as artificial.
The attack was a striking moment for Biden in part because he has been at the center of U.S. foreign policy and national security decisions for decades. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as President Barack Obama’s vice president, he had a seat at the table for some of the most consequential triumphs and tribulations in recent history.