Earlier this year, a bipartisan panel appointed by the US Congress advised against the “precipitous withdrawal” of American troops from Afghanistan. The panel warned of grave consequences if Joe Biden allowed himself to be driven by dates and a strict timeline, rather than a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground. Mr Biden, who had inherited a 1 May exit deadline from Donald Trump, ignored this advice, naming instead a new date. All US forces would be gone by 11 September, exactly two decades after the invasion prompted by the al-Qaida attack on the World Trade Center.
A timetable bound up with domestic political symbolism has handed over Afghanistan to the Taliban and millions of Afghans to a frightening and unstable future. In the spring, a Biden administration official said: “We went to Afghanistan to deliver justice to those who attacked us on September 11th … We believe we achieved that objective some years ago.” These words were presumably intended to convey a pragmatic determination to end a “forever war”, as well as a neat sense of narrative closure. Today they read like an insular, inward-looking rationale for an abdication of responsibility that will scar the Biden presidency.
For the thousands of Afghan citizens attempting to flee Kabul airport on Monday, there is no closure; only a sense of premature abandonment, and the beginning of an era in which they must navigate the likely brutalities, misogyny and authoritarianism of Taliban rule. Understandably unpersuaded by Taliban reassurances of a more moderate approach, many women and human rights activists have gone into hiding. With unseemly haste, the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, has fled the country. Appalling footage of people apparently falling to their death, after clinging to departing planes, will stand as a lasting indictment of a foreign policy disaster for which ordinary Afghans are set – once again – to pay the price.
The west’s failure to understand the extent to which the Taliban used Doha peace talks to string Donald Trump and the US along, while preparing a lightning offensive, was a catastrophic intelligence lapse. To begin troop withdrawal at the beginning of the fighting season, while removing vital logistical assistance to the Afghan air force and failing to develop contingency plans, was reckless. It speaks volumes for the lack of focus that the troop pullout, and subsequent Taliban advance, took place while some leaders, including, briefly, Boris Johnson and the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, were on holiday.
As the exodus of western nationals from Kabul continues, the US and British authorities have pledged to expedite processes for Afghans eligible for visas. Everything that can be done must be done. But for large numbers, as the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, acknowledged, it will be too little, too late. Months of foot-dragging, administrative incompetence and the lack of a true sense of urgency mean that many will now be trapped. The Taliban control all routes to the airport in Kabul.
This debacle will have profound and destabilising consequences for the region. It has undermined Mr Biden’s desire to rehabilitate America’s reputation as a global humanitarian force, following the Trump presidency. A humiliating setback for the west will encourage Islamist terrorist groups around the world. But most directly and immediately, the desire to close the book on Afghanistan and move on has failed a people. After two decades of a western presence in their country, Afghans who had come to enjoy greater freedoms had a right to expect more care and attention to be paid to their fragile situation. Mr Biden, focused on consigning the 9/11 era of US foreign policy to history, has badly let them down.
