The Afghanistan debacle 2

I suggested is a post back in June that the midterm election results would probably turn on a few key issues, of which the Afghanistan withdrawal was one. At the time I suggested that it depended on whether the medias found a “Saigon moment” (see photo below, the last people leaving on the helicopter on the roof of the American Embassy) or not to trumpet.

 A month ago US intelligence estimated that Kabul might fall to the Taliban in 6 to 12 months. Last week they revised this estimate to 90 days. Yesterday morning Taliban troops entered the outskirts of Kabul.

On Thursday, July 8, asked in a news conference if a Taliban takeover was inevitable, Biden said “No, it is not, because you have the Afghan troops, they're 300,000 well-equipped, as well equipped as any army in the world, and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable."

On Thursday, August 12, Biden said there would be "no circumstance in which you are going to see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the United States from Afghanistan."  This morning helicopters are carrying staff from the American Embassy to the Kabul airport. Administration figures vigorously deny this is anything like Saigon, but in fact it is exactly like the Saigon debacle, and no amount of spin and denial is going to hide that.

All of these predictions were wildly wrong. The Taliban took over the country in about a week. Clearly it was long past time to get out of a 20-year unwinnable war, so in that respect Biden did the right thing to withdraw. Clearly there was thoroughly inadequate planning for this withdrawal, and in that respect Biden and his administration own the consequences. Oh, the military did a good, careful job of withdrawing their people and equipment, but the administration completely failed to account for the civilians, Afghans and foreigners, who also had to be withdrawn.

Trump, if he had been re-elected, might well have done as badly, But he wasn’t re-elected (whatever he says) so Biden and his administration own this debacle, and it will no doubt have consequences in the upcoming midterm elections.