A reckless western withdrawal timetable has let a people down
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.
