Biden must redeploy America to Afghanistan
Among the victims of the bomb blast in northern Pakistan last month were nine Chinese workers on their way to a construction site. They were from the team building a new dam, one competent of the $65bn programme of infrastructure investment being undertaken by Beijing under CPEC, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, part of the Belt and Road initiative designed to make countries dependent on Beijing and the increasingly assertive Chinese Communist Party.
Beijing was furious about the attack and demanded that its ally Pakistan identify the perpetrators. This week the Pakistan government blamed the act of terrorism on the governments and intelligence services of India and Afghanistan, although there is little left of the Afghan government. By the time you read this, President Ashraf Ghani may have resigned and the collapse could be complete. The Taliban is advancing fast.
What does a terrorist bomb killing Chinese construction workers have to do with any of this unfolding disaster in Afghanistan? It is a reminder that geopolitics is inter-connected; that failure in one area has knock-on effects; and that the main lesson of 9/11 has been forgotten by this US administration. That lesson is that isolationism offers only short-term, illusory gains. In a world of fast global travel, porous borders, rogue regimes and radicalisation via new technology, terrorism unchecked will travel.
The disastrous US withdrawal of its remaining logistical support and troops ahead of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 has created just such a dangerous vacuum, opening up opportunities for terrorist groups to rebuild under the cover of the Taliban.
US retreat and defeat makes an already difficult situation even more unstable as other powers will now attempt to deal with the fallout. Pakistan used to sponsor the Taliban, although its leadership became warier as the hardline Taliban ideology was re-exported back across the border.
Pakistan and China are nascent economic allies, hence Chinese alarm at that attack killing nine of its citizens. Taliban representatives met with the Chinese Foreign Minister in July, to try to reassure the Chinese about their intentions after American departure. China also shares a short, remote stretch of border with Afghanistan. Yet the Taliban itself is divided, between those who say they seek peace and those who are violent militants hell-bent on purging opponents.
What China will fear is a further spiral of violence and instability in Afghanistan, creating scope for the rise of an ISIS-style group, so it will need Pakistan to become more involved to attempt to control the situation. That creates fresh dangers. The Taliban may struggle to establish a coherent government in Kabul, in which case it will be vulnerable to attacks by remnants of the former government and those desperate not to live under a theocracy. A civil war is in prospect.
What is baffling is that there was a sensible alternative available that was comparatively low cost and low risk. That was for the Biden administration to admit earlier in the summer that it had made a mistake, and as allies advised to keep several thousand troops and air and logistics experts. That would have given the Afghans confidence to resist the Taliban and to keep building a better way of life.
Those who say that nothing has been achieved by the sacrifice in Afghanistan are plain wrong. Not only was it shut down as a nexus for exporting terrorism. Despite reverses in recent years, the country has shown it can improve in other respects, not least on women’s rights and education. Polling by the Asia Foundation in 2019 showed 87% of Afghans supporting education for girls, a huge shift from the mediaeval attitudes of a few decades ago. World Bank data suggests that the reemergence of the Taliban in recent years, targeting schools and terrifying parents, has reduced the numbers in school. In 2011 the number of girls in school peaked at 65%, but by 2015 only 57% of girls were logged as being in the first year of education. Nonetheless, that is still progress from the late 1990s and the last time the Taliban was in charge.
Trying to improve that situation further by staying, quietly, and enabling charities and NGOs to continue their work in alliance with moderate Afghans was surely a better idea than the geopolitical chaos and refugee crisis to come unleashed by the Biden team.
Allies did attempt to warn the White House about the impact of complete withdrawal. Ben Wallace, Britain’s defence secretary, has called US policy a mistake and he attempted to interest other NATO countries in keeping a presence. Without American involvement, there was no interest. The West left.
With unintentionally comical timing, the White House has recently confirmed that President Biden plans to host a “democracy summit” later this year as part of his effort to rally allies against autocratic rivals. Having seen how the Biden White House, and the Trump White House before it, behaved on Afghanistan, other countries are unlikely to put much faith in American lectures about defending democracy. Biden’s own reputation internationally will likely be in ruins after this debacle.
What will he do? The President is a creature of polling, so if Americans shrug their shoulders about the plight of the Afghans he may try to get away with doing nothing. Inaction has consequences though. In the balance is the rest of his presidency and relations with allies he needs to get anything done internationally. If the meltdown in Afghanistan leads directly to terrorism in the US, in Western Europe or anywhere else, it will be blamed on Biden. If a new migration crisis hits Europe, as moderate Afghans flee, it will be blamed on Biden. Conceivably, this may even have an electoral effect in countries such as Germany and Britain, where migration can upset the political equilibrium.
In National Review this week, David Harsanyi has a good account of Biden’s shifting position – or flip-flopping – on Afghanistan since 9/11. As a former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (from 2001 to 2003, and again from 2007 to 2009) the President prides himself on his supposed nous for international affairs.
Harsanyi says: “For the past 20 years, Joe Biden has been on every side of nearly every position on Afghanistan – usually the wrong one at the wrong time.”
That’s slightly unfair. Afghanistan is such a thorny security problem that it would be surprising if his position has not changed in some regard in two decades.
In the aftermath of 9/11 and the subsequent defeat of the Taliban, Biden was a liberal hawk demanding more troops and greater intervention. Public opinion shifted and he was for getting out. He was opposed to President Obama’s increase in troops that stabilised the Afghan government. When American opinion wearied of any more involvement, he was for withdrawal. Much is made of the differences between Biden and former President Donald Trump, yet Biden was happy to continue Trump’s “America First” policy of withdrawal.
What the President should do now is reverse that position swiftly. He can admit that having talked to allies it is clear the facts on the ground have changed. National security, international stability and the humanitarian needs of the Afghan people, necessitate American reengagement.
A roadmap to how it could be done was published yesterday by John Allen, retired US Marine Corps four-star general. He is also a former commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan. Allen is President of the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank that is friendly to Biden. Brookings is a liberal, centrist outfit.
Writing for Defense One on Friday, Allen said the administration must issue a public “redline” to the Taliban, “with clear limits to their offensive combat operations and subsequent behaviour in captured areas, beyond which the US will intervene with military force.”
Biden should issue “prepare to redeploy orders”, he advised, by publicly announcing the Department of Defense has its forces ready. And the US should conduct an “around the clock” airlift of those with special immigrant visas and other eligible Afghans. The US will need to reengage rapidly and for many years to come, he says, describing Biden’s current policy as “baffling.”
“The anguished cries coming from Afghanistan are now deafening,” says Allen. “None more so than from the women, who are already suffering under the Taliban lash. History’s judgment of this moment will be swift and harsh about who lost Afghanistan.”
Biden should give John Allen a call and get moving.
What I’m reading
I’ve just finished Woke, Inc – inside the social justice scam – by Vivek Ramaswamy, an American biotech entrepreneur. I also had to go back through Barca, Simon Kuper’s brand new book, to hone my questions ahead of interviewing Simon. He has produced an outstanding book merging history, sports psychology and personal reflection. Ultimately, as he says, in a world where the news is Covid, climate, Brexit division, Trump, Biden and Afghan collapse, our lives are enriched and improved by beauty. What FC Barcelona built may have crumbled, with the departure of Lionel Messi and the ending of the cycle that began with the arrival of Johan Cruyff as a player and then coach. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But it was beautiful while it lasted. These things are worth cherishing and celebrating.
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