U.S. LEAVING AFGHANISTAN IS LOOKING LIKE THE SOVIETS, WHEN THEY LEFT

 

…General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Biden’s Chief adviser

 

We have known for years how difficult it would be to leave Afghanistan

 

Why does anyone question whether we will be successful in leaving Afghanistan?  We all knew it wasn’t going to go well.

President Biden has had a few precious weeks to bolster his plan for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.  This is so that the country doesn’t degenerate into an even more chaotic and dangerous mess. The impact of the U.S. departure is proving more swift and shattering than even the pessimists had predicted.  It it is exactly what other nations have gone through for centuries in trying to install a modern government in this country.

Biden must have hoped that he would be winning applause this summer for finally bringing home the troops from the United States’ longest and most frustrating war.  Instead, he’s facing the mounting anxiety, both within his administration and abroad, about the rapid demise of the Kabul government and the danger of an armed takeover by the Taliban.

We have known for years that it was going to be difficult to leave Afghanistan.  There have been many nations, going back to the Ottoman Empire and before, that have tried to tame Afghanistan, and they all have failed.

Afghanistan has always been controlled by their centuries old religion.  The Taliban has always been stronger than any other type of an attempted government.

A bloody collapse in Kabul will be a self-inflicted wound for Biden, and the first serious mistake of his presidency. But what are the options for any U.S. President?  He decided, against his own military advice, to withdraw the small U.S. commitment of 2,500 troops who remained when he took office. 

But every attempted government’s military have always been against leaving Afghanistan.  Having chosen this course, some say the president should have planned far better for the transition and framed a clearer strategy for avoiding a Taliban takeover.  But there is no way for any foreign president to win in this country.  Even if he had decided to keep that 2500 U.S. troops on the ground in this country, it would only prolong what will be the final effects of leaving a land that is not going to change its way of life.

The White House is now finally recognizing the painful reality that Biden will own the Afghan endgame, whatever and however bad it finally is.

Three other U.S. presidents made the decisions that led to this continuing war. But it was Biden who rejected the advice of many of his senior military and national security advisers and decided to pull the plug quickly and decisively.

“This is a disaster in slow motion,” argues Saad Mohseni, the head of Moby Group, the largest media organization in Afghanistan. He asks why the Biden administration failed to encourage a continued presence by U.S. contractors who could help the Afghan army continue its operations,  Also, why it didn’t plan better long-term security for key locations, such as Kabul's International Airport.

Biden’s options for stabilizing Afghanistan now are severely limited. U.S. combat troops are gone: Once the military was given the order to retreat, it didn’t waste any time. But Biden still has some leverage that could check the panic that’s spreading in Afghanistan following the U.S. military’s departure.  It might forestall a Taliban armed takeover in Kabul in the next three months, but the analysts fear a takeover is likely.

Here are some steps Biden could take to reduce the likelihood of a catastrophic outcome:

• He could appoint a special U.S. military envoy to visit Kabul immediately and recommend measures to assist the Afghan military and provide continuing U.S. support. Two obvious possibilities are retired Gen. David Petraeus, former commander of U.S. forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and retired Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who co-chaired a blue-ribbon Afghan study group for the U.S. Institute of Peace.

• He could demand that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani create a leadership council that includes all major forces across the country that oppose the Taliban. This “big tent” is the country’s last chance to gather a coalition that can check a takeover by the Taliban.  (But there is no guarantee that it would work.)

• He could try backing up an international mediator who can bolster U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad’s dogged, but so far unsuccessful efforts to encourage a peaceful transition agreement between the Taliban and the Kabul government.  The Afghanistan’s neighbors of Pakistan, India, Russia, China and Iran, they all oppose a military takeover by the Taliban. So a regional consensus for stability is within the realm of what can be achieved.

But the reality is that the United States needs urgent help from Afghanistan’s neighbors in assembling a broader coalition government and preventing a Taliban takeover. This shouldn’t be an ask, as in Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s March letter to Ghani, but a demand, backed by all the carrots and sticks America has in hand.

If Afghanistan turns out to be a freewheeling disaster, it will obliterate other seeming gains in the battle of influence with Russia or China. The trickiest issue is how to get help from China, which is worried about an Afghan government collapse.  But instead, China has seemed to be gloating over the United States’ troubles.

Afghanistan will never be a Switzerland, but it can be a more modern and prosperous Afghanistan. But would the Taliban ever allow that to occur?

Here’s one statistic that should remind us all why it’s worth helping the Kabul government survive: In the more than 200 district centers now under Taliban control, they have closed 40 radio stations, according to the local media executive. However, the five they have allowed to continue operating do not broadcast any women’s voices or any music.

The Afghan military is collapsing faster than Biden had expected. The current White House is rattled by the flight of more than 1,000 Afghan soldiers into neighboring Tajikistan, and by the weakness of the commando corps, supposedly the government’s best fighters.

The commandos are trying to operate in disparate locations in this large, mountainous country, and without support from U.S. contractors, they really don’t have a chance.

America is grateful that our troops are coming home after 20 years, but Biden needs to move quickly to make certain that they leave behind something more than the expected ruin.

Unfortunately, this is looking more and more like what we witnessed when the Soviets had to leave quickly, with their tail between their legs.

Copyright G. Ater 2021