The following is from David Frum which I know will trigger angry recriminations for his role in the whole war on terror and for good reason. But when he’s right, he’s right even if he was wrong then:
ICYMI I wrote this on the origins of Biden’s Afghan dilemma.
When President Obama took office in 2009, he faced a deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan. After much deliberation, he ordered a surge of troops that ultimately deployed 65,000 Americans, as well as substantial contingents of NATO allies.
Those forces hard and well through the first Obama term. But they failed to achieve the thing most needed: the construction of a stable Afghan state, supported by security forces that could best the Taliban without massive foreign backing.
Meanwhile, US intel confirmed what had long been suspected: the man who started the war, Osama bin Laden, had been hiding for years not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan – surely with the connivance of at least some important people in the Pakistani state.
The Obama administration did not respond to this stark exposure of Pakistani duplicity, in part for the reasons in the thread you can read starting here.
All this was observed and witnessed by Obama VP Joe Biden. And when Biden reached the presidency in 2021, he was confronted with the same predicament that faced Obama in 2009: deteriorating security situation, weak Afghan state, etc. etc.
Only Biden’s predicament was much worse! The Trump administration – led here by SecState Pompeo – had struck a deal with the Taliban: give us low US casualties through the 2020 election, we’ll surrender Afghanistan to you after the election.
Trump’s last secretary of defense Chris Miller now justifies this deal by arguing: Trump never intended to honor it, it was just a ruse, Trump would have reneged had he somehow won the 2020 election.
But Trump made very clear: he wanted out of Afghanistan at any price. He cared nothing for Afghan lives and freedoms. Maybe *Miller* hoped to renege on Pompeo’s deal – but Miller’s hopes tell us little about what a re-elected Trump would have actually done in Afghanistan.
It’s a strange thing that the best excuse that Trump supporters can offer for the Trump-Pompeo deal with the Taliban was that Trump-Pompeo were negotiating in bad faith. But that’s the excuse.
Whether the excuse described reality or not, however, mattered little to the situation faced by the incoming Biden team. The Taliban had upheld their end of the Trump-Pompeo deal. Biden’s choices thus became quite stark.
He could renege on the Trump-Pompeo deal himself, igniting a new round of fighting that would demand a new surge of US forces – repeating the experience of 2009, but this time with even more dependence on an even less friendly Pakistan (linked thread)
Or else honor the Trump-Pompeo deal and exit Afghanistan – risking that local Afghan power-holders would rush to reach their own accommodations with the Taliban, capsizing the Afghan state faster than the US could extricate itself.
Whatever you or I or the people on cable TV would have personally advised Biden, there was no escaping the threshold question: honor Trump’s deal and surrender Afghanistan – or renege on Trump’s deal and recommit more or fewer US forces to defend Afghanistan.
Biden had attended this particular movie before. He had seen the beginning, middle, and end. So it’s unsurprising that he had his own strong views about what to do.
Nobody can ever know the hazards of the road not taken. Had Biden opted to renege on the Trump-Pompeo deal, that would have had costs too. Maybe those costs would have been worth it. But maybe it’s also the job of a president to face ugly truths and accept bad outcomes.
As powerful as the US is, it cannot do everything/be everywhere. Only one thing at a time can be the top priority. Obama’s 2009 Afghan surge limited Obama’s options w/r/t Russia, China, Pakistan.
Biden’s tough and cold Afghan decision widens US options in the world.
The most terrible burden of the presidency is the inescapable obligation to balance life against life.
Originally tweeted by David Frum (@davidfrum) on August 20, 2021.