The future of Afghanistan is yet to be determined, but the debate has abruptly shifted to the future of the United States after its withdrawal from Afghanistan. This may be the first time in history that a ruler is sought to be punished for ending a war of 20 years . “Pax Americana died in Kabul,” a strategic thinker declares. This is a watershed moment that will bring down the curtain on the West’s long ascendency, he predicts. Others say that the damage can be limited if U.S. President Joe Biden resigns. Some U.S. Congressmen have submitted a questionnaire to Mr. Biden raising such issues as the Taliban acquiring nuclear weapons. Mercifully, there is no significant opinion that the U.S. should not have withdrawn its troops or that the U.S. should reoccupy Afghanistan. “The U.S. has done the right thing in the wrong way,” says another learned commentator.
Defining event
To understand the present plight of the U.S., we need to go back to the terrorist bombing of 9/11, which was a game-changing global experience. It transformed the geopolitics of the world, which was determined by the size of the nuclear arsenals of the nuclear weapon states. The most powerful country in the world, which had the capacity to destroy the world many times over, became powerless before a few terrorists, who had only knives and forks as weapons. In one clean swoop, the theories of the balance of power, mutually assured destruction and nuclear weapons superiority went up in smoke with the Twin Towers of New York. Once the responsibility of the attack was traced to Osama bin Laden and the terrorists in Afghanistan, it was imperative for the U.S. to retaliate by overthrowing the Taliban regime and hunting out and killing bin Laden.
Benefits of the U.S. presence
The U.S. accomplished its mission within a short period but it was not able to withdraw because the Afghanistan government was unable to withstand the onslaught of the Taliban and other terrorist groups. Even neighbouring countries, including India, were strongly in favour of continuing the American presence. Pakistan played a double game — of being a partner on the one hand and an adversary on the other. It was not a matter of the Americans imposing themselves, but being invited to provide a certain stability for Afghanistan. The result of their presence was the prevalence of relative peace in the region except that Pakistan fattened the Taliban with American largesse. In the process, the troops in Afghanistan protected the homeland and the Americans, because the Taliban and other groups were kept engaged in Afghanistan territory.
At this moment, when American failures at the time of withdrawal dominate the news, it is worth recalling that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan had succeeded in containing the dangers of terrorism for two decades. Considering that terrorism has endured in the broader West Asia/Middle East and the attacks and victims worldwide are three to five times higher annually than in 2001 (9/11), the benefits of the American presence should not be underestimated, even though the cost was high in terms of American money and lives.
We should also remember that the clear mandate given to Mr. Biden was to clean up the Augean stables left behind by his predecessor, President Donald Trump, and how the world as a whole and a majority of the U.S. citizens heaved a sigh of relief that the U.S. finally had a predictable, steady and experienced leader to combat the novel coronavirus pandemic and racism in the country and to recover its position in the centre of the world that the Chinese were hoping to grab. Mr. Biden moved in earnest to return to the Paris Agreement (climate), resume the dialogue on the Iran nuclear deal and to reassure America’s traditional allies that the U.S. would stand by them. He gave a clear signal to China and Russia that no confrontation would be tolerated, but cooperation, wherever possible, will be pursued.
The Afghan exit
Withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan was yet another unfinished agenda he had inherited and what he did was merely to follow up the agreement reached with the Taliban and announce a deadline, in the expectation that the Afghan forces trained and equipped by the Americans and the Kabul government would step into the vacuum. As Mr. Biden pointed out, the decision about Afghanistan was not just about Afghanistan. It was about “ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries”. But the series of events that happened till the end of August 2021 completely wiped out what should have been the good ending of a partly successful war on terror.
Even if the exit became a disaster because of the wrong calculations on the part of the military advisers — who stand condemned by the retired flag officers for the tragic and avoidable debacle — to declare it as the end of the road for Mr. Biden and the United States is unfair and graceless. History is replete with events of extreme folly by rulers who survived because of the many other mitigating factors in their favour. By those standards, the Biden presidency has every reason to survive.
The decisiveness with which he has handled the debris of the exit should receive approbation. As a true Commander-in-Chief, he stood by his Generals and took the blame. He has not even been provoked to attack the Taliban or to criticise the Afghan forces for their betrayal of their patrons. In fact, he went out of his way to announce that the Taliban was helpful in facilitating the evacuation, which was completed before the deadline, Interestingly, it was Mr. Biden who set the August 31 deadline, which was turned into an ultimatum by the Taliban.
Many commentators have argued that the Kabul fiasco was worse than Vietnam, Tehran, 9/11, Iraq and COVID-19 because the details of the other disastrous developments had lost their sharpness with the passage of time. Whatever may have been the horrors of those events, no President was held accountable for them and removed.
In the case of U.S. President Gerald Ford, 59% of the people said that he deserved none of the blame at all. Only 2% held him responsible, though he lost the elections in 1976. President Ronald Reagan’s misadventure in Lebanon was criticised by 60% Americans in 1984, but he won the election later that year. There were reasons for these Presidents to continue to serve the nation, taking the reverses in certain areas in their stride. As of now, there is no alternative to President Biden to lead the country, after his having learnt a bitter lesson from the Afghan experience. A CNN commentator remarked that the withdrawal may hurt him in the midterm in 2022 and presidential election in 2024. “They could just as easily have no impact at all.”
No setting sun
Even more unfortunate is the conclusion that the U.S. itself lost its place in the world on account of its failure to have a sagacious leader or a competent Commander-in -Chief. A superpower does not sink or rise on account of a single leader. It is still the most powerful economic and military power around which the whole constellation of the world rotates. In fact, the world has a stake in ensuring that a democratic nation leads the world rather than an expansionist dictatorship which has no public opinion to restrain it. The free world has a responsibility to maintain the American leadership of the world till a wiser and more benign alternative is found.
Much has been written about a post-American world for some years now. But it looks that the demise of America, as Mark Twain said about the reports of his own death, is greatly exaggerated.
T.P. Sreenivasan, IFS 1967, is Former Ambassador of India and Governor for India of the IAEA. He is also Chairman, Academic Council. Director, NSS Academy of Civil Services, and Director General, Kerala International Centre
