Swift Afghan Exit Fails to Save Trump
Michael Hughes
December 2, 2020
The record-pace extraction of US forces from Afghanistan after 20 years of lost blood and treasure is a significant historical accomplishment in the eyes of many Americans, especially when compared to how previous administrations in Washington have handled the conflict. However, as audacious as the endeavor was, it failed to achieve its number one overriding objective – getting Donald Trump re-elected.
The strategy, regardless how ugly in execution, had broad appeal among U.S. voters outside Washington’s political-military establishment. Support for Trump’s call to end America’s role in foreign conflicts, top amongst them being Afghanistan, cut across a wide political spectrum.
This image of Trump-the-peacemaker, however superficial, found purchase among segments of society that rarely agree on anything – from right-wing anti-globalists to fringe-left antiwar progressives. There were many willing to put some social issues on the backburner. The weariness of war and disgust with business as usual in Washington led to an impressive level of psychological compartmentalization.
Yet it is important to note that this type of single-issue voter makes up a small percentage of the electorate. While the Afghan gamble may have boosted Trump’s odds at the polls slightly, it was still insufficient in overcoming other of the Dealmaker-in-Chief’s deficits and polarizing ways.
Besides, most Trump supporters mainly wanted the White House to remain a reality TV show and the turbulent Afghan exit was simply part of the entertainment. For Trump’s enemies, the success or failure of the exit itself was irrelevant – they simply assumed any policy emanating from his administration must be defective. So, in the end, Trump went to great lengths to sway the opinion of about 1 percent of Americans. Then again, in some states one percent was a decisive margin.
Meanwhile, unlike most Americans, Afghans felt the pain of the aforesaid ugly execution. Afghans watched the great empire, as it stumbled towards the exit doors, empower the Taliban on its way out. And this for purely cosmetic reasons. A fake peace deal, in Trump’s mind, was better than no peace deal, for even the semblance of one the New York tycoon could spin politically.
Pakistan and the Taliban, meanwhile, embraced the agreement but for all the wrong reasons. The deal for them did not represent a step towards global peace in our time, but rather a step towards turning Afghanistan into a Pakistani puppet kingdom.
The Taliban, in fact, may have gotten the last laugh. In August of 2017, the insurgent movement, in a brilliant psychological ploy, stroked Trump’s ego in an open letter. Trump’s South Asia strategy would soon shift gears from aggressive offensive warfare to fast-tracking peace talks. The end game was a historic pact that would see the superpower withdraw all troops while the Taliban promised to reduce violence and divorce al-Qaeda.
Now, in the wake of the president’s electoral defeat, the Taliban stand victorious. To add insult to injury, the radical group has not even attempted to abide by at least the spirit of the agreement, as US officials have recently made crystal clear.
“We do not think the Taliban is keeping its word under the agreement,” US Ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison said in a briefing on November 30. “The violence is too high and the Afghan people and the Afghan soldiers have paid a heavy price.”
On the very same day, US Chargé d’Affaires to Afghanistan, Ross Wilson, echoed these sentiments.
“The Taliban are not meeting the commitments they held out to us in concluding the peace agreement in February,” Wilson told Aryananews. “We have repeatedly called on the Taliban to reduce violence. Unfortunately, our efforts, our advocacy… and efforts of the United Nations did not succeed.”
Wilson then parroted the absurdity about how ground conditions will shape the American strategy.
“The issue of withdrawal, which was previously announced by the US, will be based on conditions,” Wilson added.
The Taliban have steadily escalated violence since the agreement was inked while the US troop exodus has flown uninterruptedly.
On the other hand, Wilson’s words may not be so absurd considering that the establishment will be making a comeback under a Biden administration. Although the U.S. president-elect has signaled that he will not deviate from Trump’s Afghan policy, the cabal of war hawks he has surrounded himself rightly cast doubts on his campaign promises.
Biden is considering making former defense official Michèle Flournoy America’s first female Pentagon chief. Unfortunately, she has never come across a foreign war she did not support. In an op-ed for The Washington Post penned shortly after the US-Taliban deal was finalized, Flournoy warned against an abrupt withdrawal, singing from a familiar song sheet.
“If the United States just pulls out, Afghanistan would in short order descend into chaos and become once again a haven for terrorists, a source of regional instability and a threat to the United States,” Flournoy said in the article published on February 29.
In other words, the same hymn that has kept the United States mired in Afghanistan since 2001.