By Daniel DePetris
Opponents of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan are using the images of desperate Afghans seeking flights out of the Kabul airport to attack the U.S. decision to leave the decades-long civil war. Nikki Haley, the Trump administration’s former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, equated President Joe Biden’s departure from the South Asian nation as a full-blown surrender to the Taliban, as if there was an alternative between getting out of a futile nation-building enterprise and escalating Washington’s role in the conflict. The mainstream media has suggested that the less-than-ideal implementation of the withdrawal should have given the Biden administration pause even though the war in Afghanistan is as unpopular with the American public as it has ever been. “It’s not just an epic defeat for the United States,” Robin Wright, a columnist for the New Yorker, wrote on August 15. “The fall of Kabul may serve as a bookend for the era of U.S. global power.”
But in the midst of the finger-pointing about who is ultimately responsible for Afghanistan’s collapse, arguments used by critics of the withdrawal are receiving a pass. They generally center on three, wobbly legs: that withdrawal will damage Washington’s credibility with allies and adversaries alike; provide China with a golden opportunity to expand its influence in South and Central Asia at the expense of the United States and throw Afghanistan back into the arms of anti-U.S. terrorist groups. There are significant problems with all of them.
This piece was originally published in The National Interest on August 23, 2021. Read more HERE.