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WASHINGTON — With the ultimate stream of U.S. cargo planes hovering over the peaks of the Hindu Kush, President Joe Biden fulfilled a marketing campaign promise to finish America’s longest battle, one it couldn’t win.
However because the battle ended with a chaotic, bloody evacuation that left stranded a whole lot of U.S. residents and 1000’s of Afghans who had aided the American battle effort, the president stored notably out of sight. He left it to a senior navy commander and his secretary of state to inform Individuals concerning the remaining moments of a battle that led to resounding American defeat.
Biden, for his half, issued a written assertion praising U.S. troops who oversaw the airlift of greater than 120,000 Afghans, U.S. residents and allies for his or her “unmatched braveness, professionalism, and resolve.” He mentioned he would have extra to say on Tuesday.
“Now, our 20-year navy presence in Afghanistan has ended,” Biden mentioned in his assertion.
The muted response was knowledgeable by a tricky actuality: The battle could also be over, however Biden’s Afghanistan drawback isn’t.
The president nonetheless faces daunting challenges born of the hasty finish of the battle, together with easy methods to assist extract as many as 200 Individuals and 1000’s of Afghans left behind, the resettlement of tens of 1000’s of refugees who have been in a position to flee, and coming congressional scrutiny over how, regardless of more and more fraught warnings, the administration was caught flat-footed by the fast collapse of the Afghan authorities.
Via the withdrawal, Biden confirmed himself prepared to endure what his advisers hope will probably be short-term ache for resisting bipartisan and worldwide strain to increase his Aug. 31 deadline for ending the American navy evacuation effort. For greater than a decade, Biden has believed within the futility of the battle and maintained that the routing of Afghanistan’s navy by the Taliban was a delayed, if unwelcome, vindication.
Turning the web page on Afghanistan is an important international coverage goal for Biden, who repeatedly has made the case for redirecting American consideration towards rising challenges posed by adversaries China and Russia — and for shifting America’s counterterrorism focus to areas with stronger threats.
However in his effort to finish the battle and reset U.S. priorities, Biden could have additionally undercut a central premise of his 2020 White Home marketing campaign: a promise to usher in an period of better empathy and collaboration with allies in America’s international coverage after 4 years of President Donald Trump’s “America first” method.
“For somebody who made his identify as an empathetic chief, he’s appeared … as fairly rational, even cold-hearted, in his pursuit of this objective” to finish the battle, mentioned Jason Lyall, an affiliate professor of presidency at Dartmouth Faculty.
Allies — together with lawmakers from Britain, France, and Germany — chafed at Biden’s insistence on holding quick to the Aug. 31 deadline as they struggled to evacuate their residents and Afghan allies. Armin Laschet, the main conservative candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as Germany’s chancellor, known as it the “greatest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding.”
At residence, Republican lawmakers have known as for an investigation into the Biden administration’s dealing with of the evacuation, and even Democrats have backed inquiries into what went fallacious within the fateful final months of the occupation.
And on the similar time, the huge suicide bombing within the remaining days of the evacuation that killed 13 U.S. troops and greater than 180 Afghans is elevating recent concern about Afghanistan once more turning into a breeding floor for terrorists.
Biden blamed his predecessor, Trump, for tying his palms. He repeatedly reminded those that he had inherited an settlement the Republican administration made with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. forces by Could of this 12 months. Reneging on the deal, Biden argued, would have put U.S. troops — who earlier than Thursday had gone since February 2020 and not using a fight fatality within the battle — within the Taliban’s crosshairs as soon as once more.
The Democratic president’s advisers additionally complained that the now-ousted Afghan authorities led by Ashraf Ghani was proof against discovering a political compromise with the Taliban and made strategic blunders by spreading largely feckless Afghan safety forces too thinly.
Republicans — and even a number of Democratic allies — have supplied withering criticism of the administration’s dealing with of the evacuation, a difficulty that the GOP is trying to weaponize in opposition to Biden.
Home Minority Chief Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., mentioned Monday the withdrawal date set by Biden was a political one designed for a photograph op. Absent from McCarthy’s criticism was any point out that it was Trump’s White Home that had brokered the deal to finish the battle.
“There was a second in time that had this president listened to his navy, there would nonetheless be terrorist prisoners inside Bagram, we might be getting each single American out, the navy wouldn’t have left earlier than the Individuals,” McCarthy mentioned. “Each disaster he has confronted thus far on this administration he has failed.”
It stays to be seen if criticism of Biden’s dealing with of Afghanistan will resonate with voters. An Related Press-NORC ballot performed earlier in August discovered that about 6 in 10 Individuals mentioned the battle there was not value preventing.
An ABC Information/Ipsos ballot performed Aug. 27-28 discovered about 6 in 10 Individuals disapproving of Biden’s dealing with of the scenario in Afghanistan. That ballot additionally discovered most mentioned the U.S. ought to stay in Afghanistan till all Individuals and Afghans who aided the U.S. had been evacuated. The ballot didn’t ask whether or not individuals authorized of withdrawal extra typically.
After backing the 2001 U.S. invasion, Biden grew to become a skeptic of U.S. nation-building efforts and harbored deep doubts concerning the Afghan authorities’s capability to develop the capability to maintain itself.
His opposition to the 2009 “surge” of U.S. troop deployed to Afghanistan when he was vp put him on the dropping aspect of conflicts with the protection institution and throughout the Obama administration. Biden, in latest weeks, advised aides that he considered his counsel in opposition to increasing the American involvement greater than a decade in the past to be considered one of his proudest moments in public life.
However his tendency to talk in absolutes did not assist his trigger.
In July, Biden pushed again at issues {that a} Taliban takeover of the nation can be inevitable. Weeks later, the group toppled the Afghan authorities.
The president additionally expressed confidence that Individuals wouldn’t see pictures harking back to the U.S. evacuation from Vietnam on the finish of that battle in 1975, when pictures of helicopters evacuating individuals from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon grew to become gripping symbols of U.S. failure.
Actually, they noticed pictures of determined Afghans swarming the Kabul airport — at the very least one falling to his dying after clinging to a departing U.S. plane.
Biden advised ABC Information’ George Stephanopoulos throughout an Aug. 18 interview that the U.S. navy goal in Afghanistan was to get “everybody” out, together with Individuals and Afghan allies and their households. He pledged American forces would keep till they completed that mission.
However Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned Monday that there was “a small variety of Individuals, beneath 200, probably nearer to 100, who stay in Afghanistan and nonetheless wish to depart.”
The swift navy evacuation now yields to a murkier diplomatic operation to press the Taliban to permit Individuals and their allies to depart peacefully by different means.
Biden believes he has some leverage over the Taliban, former U.S. enemies was pragmatic companions, as Afghanistan faces an financial disaster with the freezing of most international support. However U.S. commanders say the scenario in Afghanistan might turn into much more chaotic within the coming weeks and months.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — Aamer Madhani has coated the White Home for The Related Press since 2019. Zeke Miller has coated the White Home since 2012.
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Related Press writers Calvin Woodward, Kevin Freking and Emily Swanson contributed to this report.
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