WASHINGTON (AFP) – When asked about the drop in election numbers, Joe Biden showed his megawatt smile and laughed. The exit from Afghanistan may sound like a disaster, but the US President is confident that he will be proved right in the end.
“I think when this is over, the American people will have a clearer understanding of what I have done,” he told reporters this weekend. “That’s the job. My job is to make decisions. My job is to decide what no one else can and will not do.”
When the Taliban completed their advance across Afghanistan by capturing Kabul in mid-August, the Biden administration had the presence of a deer in its headlights.
In Kabul, when panicked Afghans crowd the airport, chaos ensues, leading to horrific scenes of people trying to seize airplanes and killing them.
Back home, Biden was initially invisible, prompting a stream of criticism from Republicans and some of his allies.
Now, however, the White House is trying to take back control of the narrative, insisting that Americans are not seeing a debacle, but a bravely executed return from a war that should end regardless. Was.
In this image provided by US Marines, the Marine Air-Ground Task Force with Special Purposes – Crisis Response – Central Command waits with a child during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, August 20, 2021. (Lance Commander Nicolas Guevara/US Marine Corps via AP)
So far, the spin isn’t helping Biden’s political situation, which is already affected by the coronavirus delta variant and the civil war over masks and vaccines.
An NBC poll published on Sunday gave Biden a 49 percent approval rating, up from 53 percent four months earlier. Disapproval for Democrats had risen from 39 to 48 percent.
Taking over Afghanistan, the rejection was an astonishing 60 percent.
Biden, however, is Washington’s “happy warrior” model — a politician whose default setting is optimistic.
He simply smiled and laughed as he faced dark poll numbers by reporters.
“I haven’t seen that survey,” he said.
Airlift gives hope
If anyone is doing the hardest thing to rewrite the script for an embarrassed US government, it’s the military, which has so far arranged a remarkably efficient airlift from Kabul.
The latest figures show that US planes have evacuated more than 37,000 people since August 14 and more than 42,000 since July.
Evacuation children wait for the next flight as they appear at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, August 19, 2021, in this image provided by US Marines. (First Lieutenant Mark Andries / US Marine Corps via AP)
Biden, uncharacteristically brief in the first days of the evacuation, is feeding those numbers to feeling increasingly optimistic and proud about the “incredible operation.”
But mixed with patriotism and the return of his trademark empathy when talking about refugees is a new element: tough love.
Biden’s argument is that, yes, there can be mess but a mess is inevitable when you get out of the Civil War — and getting out is the only goal that really matters.
“There is no way to remove many people from the heartbreaking pictures you see on television, without pain and loss. This is just a fact. My heart aches for the people you see,” he said.
But when Biden says he has confidence in the long-term outcome of the drama, timing may not be on his side.
In the most immediate sense it is rushing to complete the mass evacuation by the August 31 deadline agreed with the Taliban, who are effectively standing back to allow their enemy to exit.
And the clock is running on Biden’s ability to steer a political ship in a city where his adversaries are circling and his allies terrified.
A pair of huge infrastructure spending packages that were meant to be the legislative crown jewels of the first term are now on hold, while Democratic congressional leaders are trying to ensure enough votes in the closely divided House of Representatives.
Just a little ahead on the horizon is a potentially game-changing test of the midterm elections, when Democrats could lose even the narrow majority they now hold in Congress.
Still, press secretary Jen Psaki was as excited as her boss on Monday, telling reporters that “you haven’t been elected president hoping to do the easy thing.”
“The test of leadership isn’t how you perform on your best day, it’s about how you act when the chips are down, when things are difficult.”
