Nearly 40 years ago, Ronald Reagan warned that when it comes to foreign policy, “weakness invites aggression.” As the events of the past few days show, that’s clearly a lesson Joe Biden never bothered to learn.
As Taliban terrorists take control of Afghanistan and run rampant through the streets of Kabul, the world is witnessing in real time the dire consequences of President Biden’s weak and failed leadership.
The images coming out of Afghanistan over the past few days have been horrific and heartbreaking.
Under Biden’s watch, we have seen U.S. citizens being evacuated by helicopter. We have seen the American flag being taken down from our embassy. We have seen Afghans desperately clinging onto U.S. military transport jets after being abandoned by Joe Biden.
These images paint a picture of one of the most humiliating American foreign policy failures in recent memory. Still worse is the knowledge that the Taliban will give no quarter to Afghans who cooperated with American soldiers and will force countless numbers of young Afghan women into marriages where rape is common.
None of what is happening was inevitable. It’s because Joe Biden botched our Afghanistan withdrawal, failing yet another leadership test as president.
By rushing the drawdown of United States troops, Joe Biden created the conditions that allowed for the rapid collapse of the Afghan government.
His withdrawal “plan” was untethered from reality and completely uninformed by conditions on the ground. Biden didn’t even bother to make sure our personnel were out of harm’s way before the Taliban captured Afghanistan's capital city.
The speed at which the situation in Afghanistan has devolved throws cold water on the notion that Joe Biden is some kind of foreign policy expert, a narrative the Biden-friendly media has run with time and again.
The chaos unfolding directly contradicts the upbeat assessments we have heard the White House offering Americans for weeks.
Don’t forget: it was only little over a month ago that Biden said a Taliban takeover was “highly unlikely.” He said the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers wouldn’t be “hasty.” He dismissed the suggestion that Americans would have to be evacuated from our embassy out of hand.
That Biden had to scramble to resend thousands of troops back into the region shows his administration didn’t, in fact, “plan for every contingency.”
As sad as Biden’s terrible decision-making on Afghanistan has been, it also shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, this is the same Joe Biden who President Obama’s own Defense Secretary said got it wrong on almost every foreign policy decision over the past four decades.
Biden’s Afghanistan disaster is now just another in a long list of his foreign policy failures.
Equally bad as Biden’s bungled Afghanistan exit are his cynical attempts to avoid responsibility and deflect blame. In fact, the only people he has not blamed are the Taliban.
While the situation was deteriorating from bad to worse over the weekend, Joe Biden was on vacation, nowhere to be seen or heard. When he did finally emerge on Monday, his press conference was full of finger pointing and desperately trying to pass the buck – only to return right back to vacation.
That kind of political pettiness might be what Americans are used to from a half-century career politician. But it’s not what they deserve from their Commander-in-Chief in a time of crisis.
The American soldiers who sacrificed – including some who made the ultimate sacrifice – over the past two decades in Afghanistan to keep us safe deserve better. I know they didn’t sacrifice just so that Biden could allow the country they served in to be overrun in a few days.
What is most disappointing about the disaster unfolding today in Afghanistan is that it could have been avoided with strong leadership and a clear plan that was competently executed.
Unfortunately, those qualities are in short supply in Joe Biden’s White House, and so the situation in Afghanistan will likely continue to get worse.