Biden’s risky Afghanistan withdrawal | Financial Times

Twenty years would seem more than enough time for America to achieve its goals in any theatre of war. Yet in Afghanistan, the US has continually found itself returning to square one. Joe Biden’s decision this week to repatriate America’s remaining 3,500 troops by September 11 — the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks — is thus good domestic politics.

It has long been Biden’s goal to wind down America’s longest war. As vice-president in 2009, he was the sole voice opposing Barack Obama’s Afghanistan surge, which he believed was the result of a Pentagon squeeze on an inexperienced president. The conditions America’s generals set for drawdown always seemed beyond realistic grasp. How could America “clear and hold” a country as unruly and friable as this graveyard of empires? The Pentagon’s long-term mission seemed even less defensible following the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011 and the near disappearance of al-Qaeda’s toehold in Afghanistan. 

Yet Biden is nevertheless taking a risk. Against the advice of his own intelligence community, which believes the Taliban could regain control of the country in two to three years, Biden is betting that the US can diplomatically achieve from afar what it has failed to do on the ground — an Afghanistan that will never again play host to international terrorist groups. Luck may go Biden’s way.

That would be in spite of Afghanistan’s neighbours, which have little interest in shoring up Ashraf Ghani’s ever-weakening grip on Kabul. Pakistan has never renounced its goal of achieving “strategic depth” in Afghanistan, which is a euphemism for the Taliban’s return. Nor is Iran likely to turn into a stabilising force.

The best thing that Biden has going for him is that the Taliban sees Isis as a rival, rather than its ally, while al-Qaeda remains quiescent. Biden is signalling that a return to Islamist government in Afghanistan may now be tolerable, while exporting terrorism remains taboo. But how can he know that one would not morph into the other? 

The answer is that he cannot. Biden himself is well aware of the risks. It was he, in 2011, who took charge of America’s final pullout from Iraq. Within two years US forces were sucked back into the region by the rapid spread of Isis across Iraq and Syria. Then, as now, the temptation to proclaim an end to America’s “forever wars” trumped the benefits of retaining a US footprint to insure against new deterioration.

The choice is understandable. As the cliché goes, there are no good options in any of these situations. But America should be aware of what could come undone. Millions of Afghan girls now going to school who would be sent back home under the Taliban. Women in the urban work force would also be in jeopardy. It is easy to dismiss America’s history in Afghanistan as a tragic waste. But these are powerful counterpoints.

Following Biden’s announcement, America’s Nato allies, which account for another 7,000 troops, said they would also pull out. This will leave Kabul even more starkly exposed. Given the Taliban’s territorial gains in the last two years, Biden’s advisers were concerned that the Pentagon would press for another surge.

When the choice boils down to all or nothing, the least bad is probably the latter. But there is a third option — to retain America’s modest presence on the ground and in the air. Last year ten US troops were killed in combat in Afghanistan. Each loss is tragic. But the result of America’s departure risks being far more tragic for Afghanistan and the world.