A Week is an Eternity in Politics

by Charles Schott

On August 9, I wrote "Foreign policy is generally not an issue in off-year elections...unless pretty much everything seems to be going wrong.?Afghanistan and Iraq are looking increasingly troubled as the US begins a unilateral withdrawal?in both places.??It is possible that Afghanistan could fall to the Taliban before November 2022?(a "known unknown")......"??See?https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/2022-midterm-elections-come-focus-charles-schott.

Kabul fell and the Afghan government completely and suddenly collapsed less than a week later on August 15.??Thankfully, the article also contained the following sentence:?"Also,?keep in mind that the midterms are still?15 months away.....and as the saying goes,?'a week can be an eternity in politics.'"?

The collapse of the Afghanistan government and the Taliban's quick move into Kabul caught everyone, and especially the Biden Administration, by surprise.

Now more than two weeks later, we?are still processing this event.....as Tom Keene said on Bloomberg TV's?Market?Surveillance?program,?"Americans are in shock!"??

We may still be working through these events, but at some point there will be a reckoning over what is almost universally seen internationally as a complete debacle.?Newspapers are (only) the first draft of history!

Importantly, two separate issues have become intentionally conflated: (1) President Biden's unilateral decision to withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan by August 31; and (2) how that decision, once made, was implemented (i.e., what did the President foresee...and when did he foresee it?)

1. How Biden's?decision to withdraw by August 31, once made, was implemented is recognized as bringing on a complete and unnecessary fiasco.? What we have been left with is the Administration's attempt to distract the country from focusing on the withdrawal, which attempt seems increasingly ill-fated, disingenuous and disrespectful.

There is an undeniable appeal to the policy idea that at some point "enough is enough" (i.e., 20 years of American troop involvement should come to a halt at some point, particularly?if the conflict seems to be at a permanent stalemate).??

Nevertheless, we?need to do the analysis...as you never want to "cut off your nose to spite your face."

First, the long term impact of President?Biden's unilateral withdrawal decision to the U.S.'s reputation is large.??

• With respect to our allies,?Politico?captured the consensus UK view:

"Former British PM TONY?BLAIR?called Biden’s Afghanistan pullout “imbecilic”?in a 2,700-word (!) post published.... on his institute’s website...?Blair’s full jeremiad."

• With respect to our adversaries, they are trumpeting the fact (going back to Vietnam) that you cannot count on the United States as an ally when it comes to staying the course.?China, immediately following Afghanistan's collapse, went on state radio to point this out to Taiwan.
• For the Afghan's themselves, this represents the 2nd time America has "cut and run"...Since day one, the Iranians told the Afghans that this abandonment would happen again and that they would still be there in the neighborhood when we did.
• For Americans, there is the matter of leaving thousands of citizens and Afghans behind, stranded behind enemy lines.

The Biden Administration's decision has created, in the words of Bloomberg commentator, Terry?Haines, an unnecessary?"crisis of confidence...and competence."?

2. Additionally, while the?decision to withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan after 20 years has superficial appeal, on the merits it is by no means a "no brainer"....

For example, it would be interesting to?compare the annual cost of our Afghan expeditionary force both for 2020 and the first half of 2021?(noting that we were said to be at a 2500?troop level with no Americans killed during that time)?with...

• The cost of leaving?(e.g, bringing in 3500 additional marines; the scramble to evacuate (logistics); billions of dollars worth of American arms and ammunition that has fallen into the Taliban's hands, etc.);?plus...
• The anticipated annual cost of defending our national interest going forward, particularly if Afghanistan again becomes a safe-harbor and training ground for anti-US terrorists;?plus....
• The contingent planning costs associated with preparing an "over the horizon" return?in the event the situation becomes intolerable (both the cost of planning and the expected costs of possibly taking action).

My best guess is that (a) alone is substantially larger than our annual commitment in 2020 and the first half of 2021.?Perhaps it would have been better to have maintained the?status quo?like we have for many years in Germany and Korea?

And where do the more than 60,000 Afghani troops who died fighting for their country in that same 18 month period when we lost no one count in the equation? ?They were clearly not "free riders."

In any event, President Biden's approach to problem solving in this case can, I think, best be summed up by the saying,?"act in haste...repent at leisure!"? This Dunkirk-like fiasco is undeniably his fault and responsibility, even as he tries to shift that fault and responsibility to others.

The?Wall Street Journal?editorial page?declared that Biden's decision marks the time when President Biden officially became President Jimmy Carter.

Finally, and in a way that seems secondary in importance, the impact of these decisions on the 2022 midterms should be material....this isn't going to go away in the next 15 months.? It should be one more element in the creation of an R wave leading to R control of both the House and Senate.

That said, I have?only one caveat to the above...."a week is?still?an eternity in politics!"

Charles Schott is a management consultant and policy advisor who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the George W. Bush Administration.??