Another American Embassy Evacuated Under Biden and Afghanistan Has Become a Terrorism Staging Ground Again

By Chuck Warren

In 2020, Joe Biden promised to “lead the way with a steady hand and provide a beacon of hope for the American people.” Facts contradict that promise.

President Steady Hand just evacuated a U.S. Embassy for the third time during his term, this time in Sudan. Meanwhile, leaked documents show that there is a growing concern about the proliferation of terrorism in the country he first evacuated a U.S. Embassy, Afghanistan. As the President has just launched his re-election bid, he is going to have a difficult time campaigning on “promises kept,” certainly not when it comes to foreign policy.

Afghanistan is where the honeymoon ended for Biden. By then, he had enjoyed net approval ratings. As the Taliban captured Kabul, more Americans began telling voters that they disapproved of his job. Since then, polls have steadily shown net disapproval by Americans of Biden. As they should.

In April, the White House published a “report” on the surrender of Afghanistan to the enemy. The report lacked depth and seriousness and almost entirely blamed the administration of Donald Trump for losing the war. The summary of the document could be presented as “Biden wanted to leave Afghanistan as he promised, but also Trump forced him to leave. So, blame him.” The document omits to mention that it was the new Biden administration’s decision, despite the advice of bipartisan leaders, to keep Trump’s envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad. It mentions that the Doha Agreement reached by the previous administration forced Biden’s hand, which is silly since the core of Biden’s campaign message was undoing everything Trump had done. It cites that the U.S. government believed that the Afghan army would hold for a long time, adding that the collapse of the Afghan army shows that leaving behind 2,500 troops, as some suggested, would have required additional reinforcement in the future. Unmentioned is that the Afghan army collapsed because Biden decided to withdraw all American contractors which were indispensable to the Afghan army’s efforts, and all those assessments assumed that the contractors would remain.

Now, Afghanistan is a hellhole. Hundreds—or some believe thousands—of U.S. citizens are trapped there, and many more green card holders. For millions of Afghans, too, life is hell. The Taliban has caused a humanitarian catastrophe. Withholding assistance will exacerbate Afghans’ suffering. Assistance will strengthen the terrorists.

Last year, the Biden administration decided to use frozen Afghan funds to help stabilize the Afghan economy and direct it toward goods such as electricity, assuring that the Taliban would not benefit from it. But while such aid does not directly help the Taliban, it will do so indirectly because a stable economy will enrich the state, as the state is becoming again a safe haven for the terrorists.

During the withdrawal, Biden boasted that new methods and technologies allowed for the United States to conduct counterterrorism operations without a presence in Afghanistan. Last year, the President ordered the successful killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, then, he boasted that he was right that there was no need for presence there.

But the recently leaked documents show that al-Qaeda is not the real problem; the Islamic State is. The report suggests that the group “has been developing a cost-effective model for external operations that relies on resources from outside Afghanistan, operatives in target countries, and extensive facilitation networks.”

The Taliban secured its power in Afghanistan in 1996. It took only five years for 9/11 to happen. But al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are different organizations with different strategies, and the United States now has a better capacity and greater awareness of Islamic terrorism. It is unlikely that something like 9/11 happens again anytime soon, however, as is the Islamic State’s way, we might see a growing number of smaller attacks as we did in 2014–2016, when the Islamic State had established itself and was not on the run and chased by the U.S. military.

Biden promised our country that ending the war in Afghanistan would not come at the price of American security. His administration’s internal assessments disagree vehemently, but he kept those assessments a secret, and he still defends his decision. With that knowledge, does he deserve your trust and vote a second time?

Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Chuck Warren only and not his co-host Sam Stone or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.