How US failed Afghan people

What went wrong with US's Afghan strategy?

 How US failed Afghan people

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• The story: The rapid collapse in Afghanistan that flowed from President Joe Biden’s decision to proceed with a complete US troop withdrawal has shocked the world.
• Historical equivalence: In April 1961, just months after the young John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th president of the United States, his reputation for expertise in foreign policy took a battering as a result of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, a covert action against the Cuban government that collapsed within a matter of days. Will the 2021 Afghan fiasco be President Biden's Bay of Pigs moment?
• Worse: This may be something worse, akin to the Suez crisis of 1956, which not only humiliated the British government of Sir Anthony Eden, but marked the end of the United Kingdom as a global power. When history looks back at the shambolic US exit from Afghanistan, it may increasingly appear a critical marker of America’s decline in the world, far eclipsing the flight from Saigon in 1975.
• The path to disaster: Afghans, turning on themselves, are already pinning the blame on now-departed President Ashraf Ghani, and Biden’s defenders are sure to join the chorus. But that's an oversimplification.

1. Ghani’s domineering style, poor personnel choices, and reluctance to delegate power to others all played significant roles in the current crisis.
2. But the institutional and political problems that were festering long before Ghani became president are perhaps more to blame: a seriously overcentralised state; a presidential system that placed far too much formal power in Kabul; and the development of “neopatrimonial” politics, based on patronage networks that had flourished under former President Hamid Karzai, which in turn fostered electoral fraud.
3. A bigger role was played by Pakistan, the Taliban’s longstanding patron and supplier of sanctuaries, logistical support, and equipment.
4. But the unintentional green light for Pakistan’s “creeping invasion” of Afghanistan, with the Taliban as its proxy, ultimately came from Washington.

• US's mistakes: First, there was the catastrophic exit agreement signed with the Taliban on behalf of the Trump administration by the US special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, in February 2020. The flaws of this deal were immediately obvious. Following that was Biden’s conscious choice to adhere to it. But how did Biden go wrong in understanding the potential disaster in Trump's deal?

1. A first factor is his lack of relevant experience in dealing hands-on with complex and dangerous foreign policy challenges. Until becoming president in January 2021, Biden had never held an office with distinct executive authority. He was a longtime legislator and then vice president, and he was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years, including several years as chairman, but never occupied a position where he was routinely required to make final decisions on matters of high policy with significant associated risks.
2. Having an interest in world affairs is not the same thing as having strong judgement or a talent for developing and implementing foreign policy. Some have argued that Biden had been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.
3. Biden may also have been influenced by a deep, almost visceral, suspicion of the advice of the US military, going back to his failed attempts while vice president to argue against the “surge” of US troops in Afghanistan, which President Barack Obama ultimately decided to do.
4. A second factor at play is likely US domestic politics. Biden and his supporters have quoted polling in support of a complete US troop withdrawal, but it is unlikely this was much of a contributor.
5. A more likely contributor was the internal politics of the Democratic Party. Biden had endured considerable criticism from the left over his ardent support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Supporting an Afghanistan troop withdrawal had the potential to ameliorate some of those concerns, and to appeal to the party’s progressive wing and ideological isolationists.

• The US-Taliban deal: The US decision also reflected a grave misunderstanding of power dynamics in Afghanistan. Mass psychology is a critical determinant of political trajectories in an environment as threatening and de-institutionalised as that in Afghanistan. The collapse of the Afghan government provides a perfect example of a "cascade" at work. The 2020 US-Taliban deal created deep and widespread apprehension about what the future might hold. Then, it only took a few localised failures to sap the confidence of all sorts of actors, both military and civilian, in the survival of the government. Side-switching became a rational strategy, then spun out of control.
• Killing the Afghan army: In the wake of President Biden’s withdrawal decision, the US pulled its air support, intelligence and contractors servicing Afghanistan’s planes and helicopters. That meant the Afghan military simply couldn’t operate anymore.
• Long-lasting damage to US credibility: It is hard to see how Biden can emerge from this disaster without his credibility shredded, but the greater loss is to the credibility of the United States, which increasingly appears a fading power internationally (as well as a failing state at home). An ignominious American departure from the country would send a terrible signal to other countries as the United States competes with China and other authoritarian states. If US security guarantees are not credible, why not cut deals with China?

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