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Rich Lowry

Opinion

When Joe Biden kneecapped his presidency

Saturday, September 14, 2024

The beginning of the end of Joe Biden's presidency arrived in August 2001.

That's when the president began a catastrophic pullout from Afghanistan that shredded our national credibility and his own reputation. He never really recovered.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee has just released an exhaustive 353-page report putting on record the sorry episode from beginning to end. The report's overarching conclusion is that this was a Joe Biden operation from beginning to end.

He insisted on the withdrawal despite ample warnings from all sides, with the bull-headed stubbornness of someone who is often wrong but never in doubt. To paraphrase Lincoln, Biden was the author and the finisher of the debacle in Afghanistan.

You practically weren't a diplomatic or military official unless you were warning against the withdrawal. As the report notes, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Commander of U.S. Central Command, the Secretary of State, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Commander of NATO's Resolute Support Mission and United States Forces all were against it.

At a NATO ministerial meeting in March 2021 attended by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, NATO representatives strenuously argued against the pull-out. A shaken Blinken relayed the NATO concerns to Biden, saying that they had come at him in "quadraphonic sound."

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

Biden likes to pretend that his hands were tied by the Doha agreement, a deal struck between the Trump administration and the Taliban in February 2020. We would remove U.S. troops if the Taliban met certain obligations.

Again, as the report notes, a who's who of officials attested to Taliban violations of the conditions of the Doha agreement — Ambassador Ross Wilson in Afghanistan, the regional security officer for the embassy in Kabul, various diplomats in the embassy, senior State Department officials in Washington, D.C., and senior U.S. military officials.

When his aides suggested to Biden insisting on "conditionality" before pulling out, he rejected it.

Everyone sensible knew what was going to happen. The chairman of the joint chiefs, Mark Milley, thought a total withdrawal meant "it was only a matter of when, not if, the Afghan government would collapse and the Taliban would take control." In a July report, CENTCOM concluded that without the contractors who would depart along with U.S. forces, the crucial Afghan Air Force would be at risk of no longer functioning.

Meanwhile, the Taliban was steadily gaining ground as we drew down -- it tripled the districts under its control from mid-April to mid-July.

Obviously, we were slip-sliding toward a repeat of the Fall of Saigon, yet the necessary preparations weren't taking place. A so-called Dissent Channel cable from alarmed embassy officials urged that we take evacuation planning more seriously, process visa applications from Afghan allies with greater urgency, and do more to secure the safety of those who had helped us.

In short order, it was too late. The Taliban took Kabul, and the airport — the only point of exit we had left — was overrun. A confused final evacuation ensued, and we had to rely, perversely, on the Taliban for security. We know the tragic consequences, as a devastating attack at Abbey Gate killed 13 service members.

According to the report, we left behind 1,000 Americans, as well as 90% of Afghans eligible for special visas. We abandoned billions of dollars worth of weapons and $57 million in currency. The Taliban has been tracking down and killing people who worked with us, creating terrorist safe havens, and holding American hostages.

No rational person would want to be associated with any of this, but, at the time, Vice President Kamala Harris boasted about being the last person in the room, and she still describes Biden's decision as "courageous and right."

After Dunkirk, a truly heroic operation, Winston Churchill said, "Wars are not won by evacuations." For his part, President Biden demonstrated how much can be lost during one.

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