There are many lessons to be learned from the debacle in Kabul, lessons for the Americans, for Israel and our allies, and for our adversaries. In no special order, here are a few:
• The moral of the story is not that the United States is a fickle friend, but that as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, “You cannot buy willpower, and you can’t buy leadership.” No amount of money, weapons, training and American blood could instill motivation and leadership in Afghanistan.
• The angst by some in Israel about American reliability is misplaced. A more realistic concern should be the safety and stability of its old neighbors and new friends. The local versions of the Taliban – Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad and Hizbollah – are highly motivated, violent, religious extremists threatening corrupt, secular Muslim governments, particularly Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority, which lack strong public support and competent leadership.
• Will Iran see withdrawal as sign of American vulnerability that its proxies can exploit with attacks on US interests in Iraq and the region?
• Will Washington’s unreliable allies in Turkey and Pakistan try to take advantage of the recent events? Both have already made overtures to improve relations with the Taliban. Will that include encouraging anti-Israel terrorism? Will Turkey pose new threats to Kurdistan?
• Will America’s rivals like China and Russia see this as sign of US weakness to seize upon? Those most worried are America’s friends most coveted by those adversaries, notably Ukraine, Taiwan and the Baltic states. When I was in Estonia, there was a popular saying: “Visit Estonia before Putin does.” Washington did little more than huff and puff when Putin grabbed part of Ukraine in 2014; maybe now he’ll go for the rest. China may decide to seize Taiwan.
• The Afghan people, particularly women and girls and those who worked with the US and NATO, face a gruesome future. They are the biggest losers in this war, and everything else pales by comparison.
• Far behind in second place are many non-Afghan losers. This prolonged war has been a treasure trove for the military-industrial complex President Dwight Eisenhower warned of in his farewell address on January 17, 1961. Guns and ammo are highly consumable commodities in wartime, and that’s good for business. The more sophisticated the weapons, the more expensive they are to buy and maintain. Ike warned of the corrupting “influence” of the war industry and its greed. Those are the folks most disappointed to see the Afghan war end. Nothing swells the bottom line like endless wars.
• Winston Churchill told FDR in January 1941, when America was still isolationist, “Give us the tools and we will finish the job.” We gave the Afghans the tools plus training and fought alongside them, but they just weren’t up to the job.
• This isn’t the first time we armed Afghan jihadis. Unlike now, the earlier occasion was intentional. That time we gave them the tools and they did the job themselves. That was 1979-’89, when the Reagan administration armed the mujahadeen and Taliban fighting the Soviet invaders, including our best anti-aircraft missiles, and it worked. Remember Charlie Wilson’s War? Now they’re back.
• The swirl of recent events has triggered an outbreak of amnesia among Republicans. When he was secretary of state only last year, Mike Pompeo went to Doha, Qatar, to sign a “peace agreement” with the Taliban, which President Trump declared would lead to a full withdrawal of American forces by May 2021. As part of the deal, Trump released 5,000 Taliban fighters, after earlier freeing Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, now set to be Afghanistan’s new president.
• Pompeo now says the administration “never trusted the Taliban,” even though Trump wanted to invite the leadership to Camp David for a peace summit. When Biden spoke earlier about an August exit, Trump tried to claim credit for his successor following his plan. The RNC even put up a webpage boasting about that “historic” Doha deal. It was suddenly pulled – but not forgotten – a few days before Kabul went kaput.
Amb. Peter Galbraith, former deputy head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, posted on Facebook: “The rapid collapse follows a surrender agreement negotiated by Donald Trump and implemented by the Biden Administration.”
A retired Israeli diplomat said the message from Afghanistan is that his country must be self-reliant. That’s longstanding Israeli policy – the country takes pride in never asking others to fight its wars. The US gives it the tools and Israel makes much of its own. But if Israel is to be truly self-reliant, it has to wean itself off $3.8 billion in annual American grant assistance. It already has the highest standard of living in its part of the world, and is a regional nuclear superpower. Going off the American dole would afford the country the greater independence from Washington’s influence that it often complains restricts its freedom of action.
The US military-industrial complex will scream about any cut in aid to Israel because most of the money goes right to them. That wasn’t the case before the 1990s, when passage of foreign aid was very difficult, and the industry refused to lift a finger to help us get the votes for fear of offending their Israel-hating customers.
Biden is taking a lot of deserved flack for the botched pullout, but I expect history will treat him generously. He stuck by his decision, taking a page from Harry Truman by declaring: “I am president of the United States of America, and the buck stops with me.” That’s a big change from the prior president who took credit for everything and responsibility for nothing. This will be remembered as Biden’s JFK movement: President Kennedy won admiration for admitting the Bay of Pigs invasion was a mistake and taking full responsibility.
Ending America’s longest war is highly popular among Americans across the political spectrum, although the bungled exit may overshadow that for now. Nonetheless, a year from today, when the election season heats up, I expect Republicans to take credit for the withdrawal (and the infrastructure bill they voted against), and accuse Biden of creating a humanitarian disaster, which in truth is shared by four administrations of both parties.