Our View: U.S. exit this July 4 will not ‘end the forever war’
With predictions of a Taliban victory within months of a U.S. exit from Afghanistan, White House critics are already declaring that President Joe Biden will own the result.
That isn’t fair, of course, because the war was never decisively waged by four successive presidents, the Kabul regime was chronically corrupt and the American public has long since lost patience with 20 years of spent blood and treasure. But it isn’t entirely wrong, either.
In Biden’s race for the exit, any chance of pressuring opposing factions into a peace settlement was forfeited.
The Trump administration last year brought the Taliban to the table to begin negotiating an end to the war. And at first it looked promising.
There was a seven-day reduction of violence (not quite a cease-fire). An agreement between the United States and Taliban that included an initial U.S. reduction in forces from 13,000 to 8,600, a Taliban promise to renounce terror organizations operating on Afghan soil, and initiation of final peace talks with the Kabul government. That last provision was key.
But as months passed without any serious effort by Taliban leaders to talk peace with the democratically elected government of President Ashraf Ghani, President Donald Trump gave away leverage by continuing to withdraw U.S. troops and negotiating a May 1 exit deadline with the Taliban. He wanted to boast in an election year that he was “bringing our soldiers back home.”
The Biden administration is at least planning to evacuate thousands of Afghans who worked with U.S. forces and now risk retribution from the Taliban.
Enter Biden
Meanwhile, Taliban attacks across the country mounted. By the time Biden took office, U.S. troop levels were down to 2,500, supplemented by 7,000 NATO soldiers, devoted not to ground combat but to training Afghan forces, providing air support for Afghan operations or conducting counterterrorism missions.
U.S. casualties were nonexistent. Biden might have slowed the exodus of troops and made further drawdowns contingent on the Taliban at least making a good faith effort to reach a peace deal with the Kabul government.
Instead, he did the opposite, announcing in April that all troops would leave. And soon. He first set a deadline of Sept. 11. Then moved it way up to July 4 (this Sunday) or shortly thereafter. Several hundred troops will remain to provide security for diplomats.
Biden said it was “time to end the forever war.” But, of course, this war wasn’t ending. America was simply pulling up stakes, a move that only encouraged more war as the Taliban stepped up offensive operations. Militants have captured 50 district capitals since May 1, and they now control a third of the country and contest 42% more.
Meanwhile, battered and homeless Afghan women are fleeing shelters in the north to escape the brutally restrictive Taliban, and the rights of women nationwide are in jeopardy.
The latest U.S. intelligence assessment is that the government in Kabul could collapse in six months, according to The Wall Street Journal. And the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller, told reporters Tuesday of his concern that the nation could devolve into civil war once NATO troops leave.
Democracy in its death throes
Nor is there a guarantee that terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida won’t once again use Afghanistan as a base. The Taliban and al-Qaida have never severed ties. With U.S. troops gone, America’s ability to monitor terrorism activities will diminish.
The Biden administration is at least planning to evacuate thousands of Afghans who worked with U.S. forces and now risk retribution from the Taliban. They’re to be taken to other countries while processing U.S. entry applications. The lives of 18,000 Afghan allies are at stake, along with about 53,000 family members. The task is daunting. Necessary. And the time to accomplish is quickly running out.
But America is certainly leaving. “Afghans are going to have to decide their future,” Biden said Friday, as he met with Ghani and promised $266 million in humanitarian aid, $3.3 billion in security assistance and millions of COVID-19 shots.
There’s some talk in the Pentagon of seeking authorization to launch airstrikes from outside Afghanistan in support of beleaguered government forces. This would be important if it was approved by the White House, though logistically challenging. But Biden may say no. He seems hellbent to wash his hands of this forever war.
So be it. But the reality is that should there be harrowing images of a democracy in its death throes beamed back into American mobile devices and living rooms in the months to come, the stain left on the Biden presidency will never go away.