WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden and other top US officials are stunned by the pace of the Taliban’s near-complete takeover of Afghanistan, as the planned withdrawal of US forces immediately becomes a mission to ensure a safe evacuation.
The pace of the collapse of the Afghan government and the ensuing chaos presented Biden’s most serious test as commander in chief, and he was the subject of criticism from Republicans who said he had failed.
Biden campaigned as a seasoned expert in international relations and has spent months downplaying the prospect of an ascending Taliban, all while arguing that Americans are tired of 20 years of war of political persuasion, a conflict that Which demonstrated the limits of wealth and military power. Western-style democracy on a society that is not ready or willing to adopt it.
By Sunday, however, key figures in the administration acknowledged that they had escaped the full tempo of the collapse of Afghan security forces. The challenge of that effort became clear when reports of sporadic gunfire at Kabul airport prompted Americans to seek refuge as they waited for flights to safety after the US embassy was completely evacuated.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday that Afghanistan fell faster than the administration expected, and blamed the Afghans themselves for the government’s collapse.
“It is certainly the case that the speed at which cities declined was much greater than anyone anticipated,” Sullivan said on NBC’s “Today” on Monday.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan speaks to reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on March 12, 2021 in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
But he said the US ultimately could not give Afghan security forces “the will” to fight the Taliban to protect their budding democracy.
“At the end of the day, despite the fact that we spent 20 years and tens of billions of dollars to give the Afghan security forces the best equipment, the best training and the best capabilities, we couldn’t give them the will and they ultimately decided they would go to Kabul. Will not fight for and they will not fight for the country,” Sullivan said.
The turmoil in Afghanistan shifts the focus in an unwelcome way for a president who has focused largely on a domestic agenda that includes recovering from the pandemic, winning congressional approval for trillions of dollars in infrastructure spending, and voting. protection of rights.
The White House said Biden would return to Washington from the Camp David presidential retreat and speak from the East Room at 3:45 p.m. local time. This will be his first public comment on the situation in Afghanistan in almost a week.
President Joe Biden helps First Lady Jill Biden as they board Marine One to depart Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Delaware, Aug. 13, 2021. (AP/Manuel Balce Seneta)
Biden is the fourth US president to face challenges in Afghanistan and has insisted he will not hand over America’s longest war to his successor. But the president has to explain how security in Afghanistan was resolved so quickly, especially since he and others in the administration insisted it would not happen.
Biden said on July 8, “The jury is still out, but the chances of the Taliban destroying everything and taking over the entire country are very slim.”
As recently as last week, Biden publicly expressed hope that the Afghan military might develop a willingness to defend his country. But privately, administration officials warned that the military was flailing, prompting Biden on Thursday to order thousands of US troops in the area to speed up evacuation plans.
One official said Biden was more optimistic on projections for Afghan fighters to see the Taliban prevent a further drop in the morale of their force. It was eventually for naught.
US Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump also longed to leave Afghanistan, but eventually stood up to resistance from military leaders and other political concerns. Biden, on the other hand, has been determined to refuse to change the August 31 deadline, partly because of his belief that the American public is on his side.
For example, an ABC News/Ipsos poll in late July showed that 55% of Americans approved of Biden’s troop withdrawal operation.
Most Republicans did not push for Biden to keep troops in Afghanistan for long, and they also supported Trump’s own push to get out of the country. Still, some in the GOP are criticizing Biden’s return strategy, saying Sunday images of US helicopters rounding the US embassy in Kabul exposed the humiliating departure of US personnel from Vietnam.
The Taliban flag flies over the Ghazni provincial governor’s house in southeast Ghazni, Afghanistan, on August 15, 2021. (AP/Gulabuddin Amiri)
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell described the return scenes as “the embarrassment of a superpower.”
With no additional steps planned beyond troop deployment, Biden was ordered to assist with the evacuation. Senior administration officials believed that the US would be able to maintain security at Kabul airport to evacuate the Americans and their allies, but the fate of those unable to reach the airport was not certain.
Senator Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who has backed the Biden administration’s strategy, said in an interview that “the speed is a surprise” but would not characterize the situation as an intelligence failure. He said it has long been known that Afghanistan will fall into the hands of the Taliban if the United States pulls out.
“Given how much we have invested in the Afghan military, it is not ridiculous for analysts to believe that they will be able to keep fighting for more than a few days,” Murphy said. “You want to believe that trillions of dollars and 20 years of investment adds up to something, even if it doesn’t make up for the country’s ability to defend itself in the long run.”
In the upper ranks of Biden’s staff, the rapid collapse in Afghanistan only confirmed the decision to leave: another six months or a year or two if the downturn of the Afghan military will come so quickly, after nearly two decades of American presence. Or more will be nothing has changed.
Biden has argued for more than a decade that Afghanistan was a sort of purifier for the United States. He finds it corrupt, accustomed to America’s generosity, and an unreliable fellow who must be made for himself. His goal was to protect Americans from terrorist attacks, not to build a country.
As Vice President, he argued privately against Obama’s increase of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to stabilize the country so that the United States and its allies could pull back their forces.
An American Chinook helicopter takes off near the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, August 15, 2021. (AP/Rahmat Gul)
As president, Biden said in July that he made the decision to withdraw with a “clear eye” after receiving daily battlefield updates. His decision was that Afghanistan would be divided in a peace deal with the Taliban, rather than falling out all at once.
In July, he said, “There will never be a situation where you see people being picked up from Afghanistan from the roof of an embassy in the United States.” “Afghanistan is very unlikely to have a unified government controlling the entire country.”