Biden right on Afghanistan, Iraq

President Joe Biden reportedly overrode the recommendations of his military advisers in deciding to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

This inevitably revived the biting critique of Robert Gates, defense secretary in both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, delivered in his memoir. Biden, Gates wrote, “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

In actuality, Biden has been more right than most about Afghanistan and Iraq. And he’s right to continue with the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan that President Donald Trump put in motion through an agreement with the Taliban.

Biden was an ardent opponent of the first Iraq war, launched by George H.W. Bush after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. But he voted in favor of the use of force authorization for the second Iraq war, following the 9/11 attacks.

The war to oust Saddam was a quick success. But, in the aftermath, Iraq became a violent, dangerous and dysfunctional place, riven by sectarian and ethnic conflict.

To ameliorate this, Biden proposed a federal system for the country. Iraq would remain one country. But it would be divided into largely autonomous regions, one each for the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. There was sufficient geographical clustering to make this plausible.

Instead, the Bush II administration pursued the surge strategy championed by Arizona Sen. John McCain. Initially, the surge appeared to work. Iraq became less dangerous. There was hope that a unified country could be stitched together.

That hope did not blossom into a reality. Iraq is not as violent and dangerous as it was then. But it is far from safe and secure. It remains riven by sectarian and ethnic divisions and competition for power. And it has drifted decisively away from the United States and toward Iran.

Would Biden’s loosely federated, largely autonomous regional states have fared better? It’s hard to see how it could have fared worse. At least it was grounded in an enduring reality that the Bush II administration didn’t recognize or refused to accept.

When Obama became president, he had a political and policy dilemma. During the campaign, Obama contended that the second Iraq war, which he opposed, was a mistake. And that it diverted attention from Afghanistan, where American security interests were truly at stake.

Afghanistan, however, was also a wreck, and the Taliban was regaining territory. The military brass recommended something similar to the surge, or a counterinsurgency strategy that, at that point, seemed to have worked in Iraq. U.S. troops, in partnership with Afghan forces, would secure territory, improve living conditions for the people, and steadily expand the writ of the Afghan government.

That was a boots-on-the-ground intensive strategy. Instead, Biden advocated a counterterrorism strategy. A much lighter presence in the country. And military engagements limited to neutralizing transnational terrorists who might gather in the chaos.

Obama went with the counterinsurgency strategy. Over a decade later, there is utterly nothing left of whatever gains that surge initially produced. The writ of the Afghan government is receding, not expanding.

Neoconservatives consistently oppose timetables for the withdrawal of American troops in conflict zones, saying that drawdowns should be based on conditions on the ground. But, as Biden observed in his speech announcing his intention to complete Trump’s troop withdrawal agreement, those conditions never seem to exist. And, if they haven’t appeared in two decades, they are unlikely to ever appear.

There are lessons to be learned from the American experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. The American military can deliver lethal force with stunning efficiency to achieve a specific objective, such as chasing the Taliban from power or deposing Saddam.

But the United States is lousy at facilitating, in the aftermath, functioning governments and market economies. That we did so in Germany and Japan after World War II doesn’t mean that we can do so today anyplace we want.

Moreover, attempting it isn’t in our national interest. It commandeers resources hugely disproportionate to any increments in security thereby obtained.

Biden has been more circumspect than most about what the United States can accomplish in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, and whether military commitments are proportionate to security threats and possible security gains.

And he’s right that it’s time to close the chapter of America’s military engagement in Afghanistan. If a threat materializes, it can be reopened. The stunningly efficient lethal force remains.