Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
President Biden wrapped up the 20-year-long war in Afghanistan with an address to the nation. All U.S. troops are gone, as is almost every American citizen, leaving a country that was invaded in response to the September 11th attacks. Was it all worth it?
With an ongoing international pandemic and a bollixed pullout of U.S. forces from a twenty year war in Afghanistan, a conversation about how to best face multiple challenges at home and abroad.
Twenty years ago, the September 11 terrorist attacks invigorated America’s sense of itself as the “indispensable nation.” But its actions since then have failed to improve global security and have endangered those who it claimed to be helping.
It has been difficult to have a serious, balanced conversation about what the United States and the Biden administration has done right in managing the exit from Afghanistan and what has been done wrong.
The collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government and the almost unimpeded resurgence of the Taliban occurred with a speed that confounded even the most pessimistic assessments of how long the government of Ashraf Ghani could survive following the unilateral withdrawal of the United States’ military presence.
Strategically and for a long, short, and medium-term interest, the decision to completely withdraw from Afghanistan, was a bad one, and the execution of it has been pretty bad as well.
Well what President Biden has done, inadvertently of course, is to put the band back together. They’re back. The Taliban are back. Al-Qaeda will be back with them.
We are not a 100% certain how much equipment the Taliban have acquired because we haven’t always taken terrific accountability of what equipment went where at what time, particularly when it came to small arms.
I could have imagined securing the airport in advanced to prevent that chaos, consultation with allies, facilitating the SIV Program. Have them go to American military bases around the world and check their documents there, but don't leave them in the sense that we've abandon Afghanistan.