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Shame: Afghanistan withdrawal politics miss the point of everything

Shame: Afghanistan withdrawal politics miss the point of everything

Fixating on final moments is preferable to facing the absolute failure of the war

Analysis | Washington Politics

On the three-year anniversary of the last U.S. soldier leaving Afghanistan, and with a presidential election looming, Afghanistan has briefly resurfaced in American discourse.

With a narrow focus on one month out of 238, and 13 deaths out of 2,219 American lives lost in Afghanistan, our leaders will once again miss the point. The spotlight will be on U.S. politics — not Afghanistan, not veterans, not Gold Star families, and certainly not Afghans. The goal is deflection, not reflection.

The harsh reality is that after 20 years our battlefield successes amounted to little. When the Trump administration entered negotiations with the Taliban, both Washington and our longtime Taliban adversaries shared the same goal: America out. President Biden soon decided to follow suit, leading to a haphazardly managed withdrawal—just another chapter in a poorly executed war strategy.

Lawmakers will fixate on the final moments because facing two decades of failure doesn’t suit them.

There are important questions that should be asked in regards to Washington’s failures in Afghanistan. Did we choose the wrong partners at the start? Was our distraction in Iraq fatal? Could we have negotiated with the Taliban sooner, or withdrawn in winter when the Taliban’s conquest of cities would have been harder? What if Bagram air base had been the final exit point, not Kabul? Why did we negotiate with the Taliban, offering them legitimacy and concessions, instead of simply leaving?

Why, after 20 years, did we fail to “know our enemy” or appreciate the intricacies of Afghanistan’s tribes and cultures? More importantly, could we have ever understood?

Some will call it a lost cause from the start — a view I understand, despite its simplicity. Others will misread the lessons to craft new intervention strategies, hoping to change history once again, albeit with better timing and execution.

Conducting after-action reviews of major U.S. military missions is both necessary and a duty. The Afghanistan War Commission and SIGAR are taking this seriously, with their findings available in public reports. Veteran journalists and analysts are also publishing books that tackle the toughest questions of our twenty-year war. However, these reports and books are unlikely to be read by those who cynically exploit our Afghan failures and the blood of U.S. soldiers for their own agendas. Whether these lessons are applied to future conflicts remains to be seen.

Listening to politicians, commentators, and retired generals, one might think the Afghanistan war was a smooth humanitarian mission, with no U.S. deaths until President Trump negotiated a withdrawal and President Biden carried it out. But that’s pure fiction.

Behind it all is a simple truth: Afghanistan was never as important to Americans as it was to the Taliban.

For Afghans and the Afghan diaspora, a bleak reality has set in: no one is coming. It’s the Taliban’s country now. Those Americans who supported staying in Afghanistan indefinitely will argue it has become hell for women — a truth backed by facts — and a hotbed of terrorism — a claim somewhat exaggerated.

They might say that, with more resolve, we could have “won” — a belief detached from reality. Supporters of the withdrawal will claim that, despite losing their freedoms, Afghans are better off with the violence reduced. Both attitudes miss the point entirely. We were never genuine or capable of shaping a future for Afghans.

Remarkably, the United States hasn’t disengaged from Afghanistan. Since August 2021, over $2 billion in humanitarian aid has been provided. While U.S. leaders have rejected the idea of supporting non-state actors to overthrow the Taliban, some Washington think tanks still advocate for it. A dedicated cadre of volunteers and government officials continue to facilitate the evacuation of Afghans who supported the United States.

Meanwhile, efforts have been made, within the limits of U.S. law, to protect Afghan assets and engage diplomatically with the new Taliban leaders. Perhaps Washington policymakers truly have learned from the past.

But with each passing year, Afghanistan will fade in importance, reduced to the status of a landlocked country with dwindling investment and moderate security risks, overshadowed by other global priorities.

Perhaps the harshest indictment of the 20-year war in Afghanistan is how little it will be discussed in the future. Each year, it will be briefly remembered on this day as a failure and then largely forgotten until the next anniversary.


Evacuation operations at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 28, 2021, in the days following the fall of Kabul to Taliban movement, amid chaos and panic scenes at the capital‚ and airport. Photo by CENTCOM-Balkis Press/ABACAPRESS.COM
Analysis | Washington Politics
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Top image credit: Project on Government Oversight

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The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.


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Top photo credit: Joshua Sukoff / Shutterstock.com

Blob exploiting Trump's anger with Putin, risking return to Biden's war

Europe

Donald Trump’s recent outburst against Vladimir Putin — accusing the Russian leader of "throwing a pile of bullsh*t at us" and threatening devastating new sanctions — might be just another Trumpian tantrum.

The president is known for abrupt reversals. Or it could be a bargaining tactic ahead of potential Ukraine peace talks. But there’s a third, more troubling possibility: establishment Republican hawks and neoconservatives, who have been maneuvering to hijack Trump’s “America First” agenda since his return to office, may be exploiting his frustration with Putin to push for a prolonged confrontation with Russia.

Trump’s irritation is understandable. Ukraine has accepted his proposed ceasefire, but Putin has refused, making him, in Trump’s eyes, the main obstacle to ending the war.

Putin’s calculus is clear. As Ted Snider notes in the American Conservative, Russia is winning on the battlefield. In June, it captured more Ukrainian territory and now threatens critical Kyiv’s supply lines. Moscow also seized a key lithium deposit critical to securing Trump’s support for Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian missile and drone strikes have intensified.

Putin seems convinced his key demands — Ukraine’s neutrality, territorial concessions in the Donbas and Crimea, and a downsized Ukrainian military — are more achievable through war than diplomacy.

Yet his strategy empowers the transatlantic “forever war” faction: leaders in Britain, France, Germany, and the EU, along with hawks in both main U.S. parties. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz claims that diplomacy with Russia is “exhausted.” Europe’s war party, convinced a Russian victory would inevitably lead to an attack on NATO (a suicidal prospect for Moscow), is willing to fight “to the last Ukrainian.” Meanwhile, U.S. hawks, including liberal interventionist Democrats, stoke Trump’s ego, framing failure to stand up to Putin’s defiance as a sign of weakness or appeasement.

Trump long resisted this pressure. Pragmatism told him Ukraine couldn’t win, and calling it “Biden’s war” was his way of distancing himself, seeking a quick exit to refocus on China, which he has depicted as Washington’s greater foreign threat. At least as important, U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine has been unpopular with his MAGA base.

But his June strikes on Iran may signal a hawkish shift. By touting them as a decisive blow to Iran’s nuclear program (despite Tehran’s refusal so far to abandon uranium enrichment), Trump may be embracing a new approach to dealing with recalcitrant foreign powers: offer a deal, set a deadline, then unleash overwhelming force if rejected. The optics of “success” could tempt him to try something similar with Russia.

This pivot coincides with a media campaign against restraint advocates within the administration like Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon policy chief who has prioritized China over Ukraine and also provoked the opposition of pro-Israel neoconservatives by warning against war with Iran. POLITICO quoted unnamed officials attacking Colby for wanting the U.S. to “do less in the world.” Meanwhile, the conventional Republican hawk Marco Rubio’s influence grows as he combines the jobs of both secretary of state and national security adviser.

What Can Trump Actually Do to Russia?
 

Nuclear deterrence rules out direct military action — even Biden, far more invested in Ukraine than Trump, avoided that risk. Instead, Trump ally Sen.Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another establishment Republican hawk, is pushing a 500% tariff on nations buying Russian hydrocarbons, aiming to sever Moscow from the global economy. Trump seems supportive, although the move’s feasibility and impact are doubtful.

China and India are key buyers of Russian oil. China alone imports 12.5 million barrels daily. Russia exports seven million barrels daily. China could absorb Russia’s entire output. Beijing has bluntly stated it “cannot afford” a Russian defeat, ensuring Moscow’s economic lifeline remains open.

The U.S., meanwhile, is ill-prepared for a tariff war with China. When Trump imposed 145% tariffs, Beijing retaliated by cutting off rare earth metals exports, vital to U.S. industry and defense. Trump backed down.

At the G-7 summit in Canada last month, the EU proposed lowering price caps on Russian oil from $60 a barrel to $45 a barrel as part of its 18th sanctions package against Russia. Trump rejected the proposal at the time but may be tempted to reconsider, given his suggestion that more sanctions may be needed. Even if Washington backs the measure now, however, it is unlikely to cripple Russia’s war machine.

Another strategy may involve isolating Russia by peeling away Moscow’s traditionally friendly neighbors. Here, Western mediation between Armenia and Azerbaijan isn’t about peace — if it were, pressure would target Baku, which has stalled agreements and threatened renewed war against Armenia. The real goal is to eject Russia from the South Caucasus and create a NATO-aligned energy corridor linking Turkey to Central Asia, bypassing both Russia and Iran to their detriment.

Central Asia itself is itself emerging as a new battleground. In May 2025, the EU has celebrated its first summit with Central Asian nations in Uzbekistan, with a heavy focus on developing the Middle Corridor, a route for transportation of energy and critical raw materials that would bypass Russia. In that context, the EU has committed €10 billion in support of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route.

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Lifting sanctions on Syria exposes their cruel intent

Middle East

On June 30, President Trump signed an executive order terminating the majority of U.S. sanctions on Syria. The move, which would have been unthinkable mere months ago, fulfilled a promise he made at an investment forum in Riyadh in May.“The sanctions were brutal and crippling,” he had declared to an audience of primarily Saudi businessmen. Lifting them, he said, will “give Syria a chance at greatness.”

The significance of this statement lies not solely in the relief that it will bring to the Syrian people. His remarks revealed an implicit but rarely admitted truth: sanctions — often presented as a peaceful alternative to war — have been harming the Syrian people all along.

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