Biden’s Chamberlain Moment in Afghanistan The fall of Kabul has been heard around the world, to the dismay of our allies and delight of our enemies. Walter Russell Mead
‘You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.” Winston Churchill’s words to Neville Chamberlain following the Munich agreement echo grimly across Washington this week as the Biden administration reckons with the consequences of the worst-handled foreign-policy crisis since the Bay of Pigs and the most devastating blow to American prestige since the fall of Saigon.
Joe Biden believed three things about Afghanistan. First, that he could stage a dignified and orderly withdrawal from America’s longest war. Second, that a Taliban win in Afghanistan would not seriously affect U.S. power and prestige world-wide. Third, that Americans were eager enough to put the Afghan war behind them that voters wouldn’t punish him even if the withdrawal went pear-shaped. He was utterly and unspinnably wrong about the first. One fears he was equally wrong about the second. We shall see about the third, and his Monday afternoon speech staunchly defending the pullout indicates that he believes he can carry the country with him.
The bipartisan scuttle caucus of which President Biden is a founding member—and former President Trump an eager recruit—argued that withdrawal would enhance rather than undermine American credibility. Ending a war in a remote country of little intrinsic interest to the U.S. does not, one can argue, make America look weak. If anything, the two-decade U.S. intervention testifies to an American doggedness that should reassure our allies about our will. At the same time, cutting our losses after 20 years of failing to build a solid government and military in Afghanistan demonstrates a realism and wisdom that should reassure allies about Washington’s judgment.
Defenders of the withdrawal argue this is one way that America can reduce its footprint in peripheral theaters to focus on the principal threat in coastal East Asia. Why should the U.S. government pay the heavy price—in military resources and in the political costs at home of defending an endless engagement in a remote part of the world—required to contain the Taliban? Isn’t the jihadist group a more direct threat to both Russia and China than to America? Why are U.S. soldiers fighting and dying so that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have one less headache to worry about?
A well-executed withdrawal that visibly served a coherent national strategy might have accomplished what Messrs. Trump and Biden hoped. But that is not what we have, and the Biden administration is facing a major test of credibility. The president’s tragically misguided press-conference remarks of July 8, in which he doubled down on naively optimistic predictions that would have embarrassed Baghdad Bob, cast a shadow over the president’s judgment that will not be easily or quickly dispelled.
The Taliban’s sweeping military victory should not have surprised Mr. Biden. The core of the argument for withdrawal, an argument he has embraced for more than a decade, is that the Afghan government and military are so irredeemably weak and corrupt that it is pointless for America to support them. To expect that such a government and such an army would cohere long enough to provide its vanishing betrayers a dignified retreat is magical thinking of the silliest kind.
The fall of Kabul has been heard around the world. In Europe, where allies had no say in either the substance or the timing of the president’s decision this looks like yet another instance of the incoherent U.S. unilateralism that marked President Obama’s reversal of his Syrian red line and much of Mr. Trump’s policy. It is not just that America’s scuttle threatens to produce a massive refugee crisis in Europe. After 9/11 our allies invoked Article 5 of the NATO mutual defense treaty to come to the aid of the U.S. They deserved some real input into the decision and the planning of any end to the war and are right to resent the arrogant incompetence that presented them with a disastrous fait accompli. In the future, Mr. Biden must expect even less European deference and respect than he has so far received.
China, Russia and Iran surely interpret this shambolic performance as a sign of exploitable weakness and poor judgment. From the peaks of Pakistan to the sands of the Sahel, fanatical jihadists discouraged by the failure of ISIS sense a fresh and favorable turn of events with the arrival of their greatest victory since 9/11. Recruitment will prosper and resources will flow—fed by the sophisticated weapons and tech we left in the field. The president may be finished with Afghanistan, but Afghanistan may not be finished with him.
A multitude of cooks collaborated to spoil this broth. The George W. Bush administration invaded Afghanistan with no clear idea of what to do next. Through the Bush and Obama years, American war aims inexorably and witlessly widened as Congress and private advocacy groups got into the act. Afghanistan was going to be a modern democratic country. Its women would have equal rights. Religious freedom would be guaranteed by a U.S.-inspired constitution. Pride flags floated in the Afghan skies. Kabul University opened a master’s degree program in gender studies.
As America’s war aims reached ever loftier and less feasible heights, the U.S. military studiously ignored the gaping flaw in its strategy: unrelenting support for the Taliban from our “ally” in Islamabad. As long as the Pakistanis offered the jihadist group sanctuary and support, it could not be destroyed. Worse, after any American departure, the Taliban’s Pakistani backing would give it an insurmountable advantage over the democratic Afghan government.
The U.S. security establishment dithered for 20 years, unwilling to confront Islamabad effectively or to recognize that failure and change its Afghan policy to accommodate its consequences. As it is, Pakistan—a nuclear power with a record of promoting proliferation and deep ties both to China and to the most hate-filled and murderous jihadist groups—has faced down America and achieved its long-term goal of reinstalling a friendly regime to its north. Whether Pakistan will be happy with its radical neighbor in the long term remains to be seen, but for now Pakistani hard-liners are celebrating the greatest single win in their history.
Nothing is more vain than the hope that somehow this debacle will help the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific. For more than 70 years India, whose massive population and economy make it a linchpin of any American strategy in Asia, has seen the world through the lens of its competition with Pakistan. Now, as Islamabad cements its ties with Beijing, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan hands Pakistan a strategic victory and strengthens the most radical anti-Indian and anti-Western forces in its government. Few in New Delhi will perceive this catastrophe as a sign of Washington’s competence or reliability. If a third-tier country like Pakistan can tie the U.S. in knots, Indians will ask: What chance does Washington have against China?
Perhaps the biggest winner in this dismal week was former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who wrote in his 2014 memoir that then Vice President Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Those lines may not have the Churchillian flair, but they are unlikely to be forgotten now. We must all hope that Mr. Biden can claw his way out of this hole into which he so heedlessly and unnecessarily leapt.
This column was updated after President Biden’s Monday speech.
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