TWENTY years of US occupation, more than $2 trillion in investment and the deaths of nearly 2,500 Americans in Afghanistan, it seemed, did not train the Afghan soldiers (and generals) and its political leadership to exercise political will in defending and preserving its US-installed democratic government and standing up to the Taliban.
At this steep price of peace and development, it was but natural for then President Donald Trump (to consider phased pull-out) and now President Joe Biden for the abrupt removal of all American soldiers, facilities and employees from Afghanistan, whose notoriously- arrogant and isolated leader, President Ashraf Ghani, fled on August 15 with Russian loot (consisting of four cars, helicopter and oozing cash some of which were strewn at the tarmac) at the first sign of cracks in his following.
US media likened the US pullout from Afghanistan to the extraction in Vietnam, with fierce criticism at the decision of Biden that political analyst said would lead to his political demise.
But poll after poll showed that the US public wanted to end the war that was launched in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks in Washington (World Trade Center and the Pentagon by Afghan-held Al Qaeda Muslim extremist group.
But Richard Fontaine, the chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security, said that a limited US presence could still have preserved gains including for Afghans who fear a return of Taliban brutality.
The occupation by Taliban of Kabul (supposed to be the last stronghold of the Afghans) was not as sudden as portrayed by media but a gradual quiet movement into the capital where opportunities abounded for pro-democracy Afghans (who valued education, work, women’s and human rights, business and progress. The Taliban is ultra conservative, rural-based group of (mostly young) people who have long wanted (but denied) of their voice in society and governance—hence their route to extremism and violence.
Even with the “surprise” swift occupation of the capital (and thousands of Afghans and allied forces’ workforce based in Afghanistan swarming the last gateway, the airport, to flee from the troubled land) Biden assured the world that he would “speak out” on the rights of women now facing a return to Taliban rule.
Biden staunchly defended his decision to pull out American troops -- despite a torrent of criticism of the chaotic end to two decades of US-led military intervention. “I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, I've learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces,” Biden said.
"We gave them every chance to determine their own future. We could not provide them with the will to fight for that future." Biden said Russia and China would have wanted the US to continue staying in Afghanistan to further drain its resources.
"Our true strategic competitors China and Russia would love nothing more than the United States to continue to funnel billions of dollars in resources and attention in stabilizing Afghanistan indefinitely," Biden said.
Both Russia and China stepped up contacts with the Taliban after the United States decided to withdraw from Afghanistan, ending a 20-year military involvement and setting off the swift crumbling of the government in Kabul.
Biden stressed that the US national interest in Afghanistan was always principally about preventing terrorist attacks on the US homeland -- and that America would continue to "act quickly and decisively" against any terror threat emanating from the country. "The mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to be nation-building," he said.
He sternly warned the Taliban from disrupting or threatening the evacuation of thousands of American diplomats and Afghan translators at the Kabul airport.
"We will defend our people with devastating force if necessary," he said.
Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security advisor, said that while Kabul's fall had not been "inevitable," the Afghan government did not use the capacity built by the United States.
"What we learned over the course of the past two weeks is if we had we had stayed one more year, or two more years, or five more years, or 10 more years, no amount of training, equipping or money or lives lost by the United States was going to put the Afghan army in a position to be able to sustain that country on its own," Sullivan told NBC television.
Trump, who had fiercely attacked Biden over the fall of the Afghan government, appeared himself to acknowledge inevitability days after his administration signed the withdrawal deal with the Taliban in February 2020. "You can only hold somebody's hand for so long," Trump said.
Asked if Afghan forces were capable of defending themselves, Trump said then, "I hope they are, but I don't know."
H.R. McMaster, a retired lieutenant general who served as Trump's second national security advisor, in an appearance last week scoffed at commentary that all powers, including the British and Russians, had failed in Afghanistan.
"What you're saying is this is inevitable because Afghanistan's always been a 'graveyard of empires'? It doesn't even frame the issue properly. We're fighting with Afghans for Afghans against this heinous group of terrorists called the Taliban," he said.
He pointed to the seven-decade US military presence in South Korea -- and noted it took years for the US ally to develop into the prosperous democracy it is now. "I just think we talked ourselves into defeat in Afghanistan," McMaster said. "I think we're watching the Afghan people pay the price for our self-delusion."
Ghani’s flight
Russian embassy spokesman Nikita Ishchenko said “the collapse of the regime ... is most eloquently characterized by how Ghani escaped from Afghanistan: four cars were filled with money, they tried to shove another part of the money into a helicopter, but not everything fit. And some of the money was left lying on the tarmac.” Asked by AP how she knew the details of Ghani's departure, she said “well, we are working here.” The AP couldn’t independently verify her claims.
Kremlin envoy on Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov on Monday described Ghani’s flight from Kabul as “disgraceful,” adding that Ghani “deserves to be brought to justice and held accountable by the Afghan people.”
Moscow fought a 10-year war in Afghanistan that ended with Soviet troops’ withdrawal in 1989 and has made a diplomatic comeback as a mediator, reaching out to feuding Afghan factions as it has jockeyed with the US for influence in the country. It has hosted several rounds of talks on Afghanistan, most recently in March, that involved the Taliban — even though Russia has labeled them a terrorist organization.
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace held back tears Monday as he conceded that Britain was unlikely to be able to evacuate all its Afghan allies from Kabul. Wallace, who served as a captain in the Scots Guard before entering politics in the late 1990s, has in recent days voiced regret at the sudden seizure of Afghanistan by Taliban militants.
He has openly worried about the potential return of al- Qaida and instability in Afghanistan and criticized the deal that Trump signed with the Taliban in February 2020 that limited direct military action against the insurgents.
“It is a really deep part of regret for me that some people won't get back and we will have to do our best in third countries to process those people.”
Wallace last week authorized the deployment of another 600 British troops to Afghanistan to help in the evacuation of the 4,000 or so U.K. nationals and Afghan allies who have helped over the past 20 years.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the US-led NATO operation achieved less than planned, adding she shared the pain of families of soldiers killed "as it seems right now like it was all in vain."
The deployment effectively ended Al-Qaeda's ability to launch another operation on the scale of its September 11, 2001 attack on the United States, but "everything else that has followed has not been as successful and has not been achieved in the way that we had planned," Merkel said.
Striking a more diplomatic note, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the failure to anticipate the Taliban's swift advance was a collective error. "All of us -- the federal government, intelligence services, the international community -- misjudged the situation," Maas told a press conference.
The agreement, signed under former president Donald Trump last year, would have seen the US withdraw all its troops by May 2021 in exchange for security guarantees from the Islamist hardliners. When Joe Biden took power earlier this year, he pushed back the deadline for the withdrawal to August 31.
Like Merkel, Wallace said the deal cut by Trump left Britain with no choice but to pull out too.
For Wallace, the Taliban takeover was "a failure of the international community to not realize that you don't fix things overnight".