With President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan 90% complete and seemingly ahead of schedule, expect Republicans to zero in on Taliban gains and any deterioration of security in the country where the United States has fought its longest war.
“It is not in America’s interest for the Taliban to take over Afghanistan. If the Taliban takes over part of Afghanistan, I fear that al Qaeda and ISIS will reemerge, and we will be paving a way for another 9/11,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, told reporters on Tuesday.
“The threats we face from terrorism and tyranny have not been defeated,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell last month. The Kentucky Republican has excoriated Biden’s planned withdrawal since it was first announced in April, describing it as “reckless,” “hasty,” and a “retreat” that will lead to a “likely catastrophe” and “threaten the U.S. homeland.”
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“When we fully withdraw, the devastation and the killings and women … fleeing across the border into Pakistan, President Biden is going to own these ugly images,” Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican serving as ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News Sunday.
Many Republicans intend to ensure Biden owns this issue a year ahead of midterm elections in which Democrats will defend razor-thin majorities in both houses of Congress. Slamming Biden’s party as weak on national defense is familiar territory for the GOP, as one-third of Afghan districts have fallen to the Taliban. A recent U.S. intelligence assessment estimates the whole government could also fall six months after the withdrawal is complete.
There is also bipartisan concern about the fate of Afghan translators and others who aided the U.S. war effort, who may find themselves or their families in danger following withdrawal. But Republicans risk misreading changes in public opinion on foreign policy since the Afghanistan war began 20 years ago.
“It is politically popular to leave Afghanistan now. The American people have had enough,” said GOP strategist John Feehery. “I think most Republicans don’t really want to support Biden on this, but that’s where their voters are, so they will criticize him without necessarily criticizing the goal of leaving.”
This has shown in public polling in which majorities of Republicans and even war veterans have swung against a continued military presence. A variety of veterans groups ranging from the conservative, Koch-funded Concerned Veterans for America to the more liberal Common Defense to the mainline, influential American Legion have endorsed Biden’s policy.
Former President Donald Trump also backs withdrawal, as he wanted the troops out four months earlier than Biden planned. Trump mainly criticized his successor for making the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that led to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan the target date for withdrawal.
“We can and should get out earlier,” Trump said in a statement. “Nineteen years is enough, in fact, far too much and way too long.”
He added, “I made early withdraw possible by already pulling much of our billions of dollars of equipment out and, more importantly, reducing our military presence to less than 2,000 troops from the 16,000 level that was there.”
“President Trump helped propel the movement,” Will Ruger, the former’s president’s final nominee for ambassador to Afghanistan, told the New York Times. “That created the conditions in which the Biden administration came to office.”
Libertarian-leaning Republicans such as Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and populist admirers of Trump such as Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri are among the GOP lawmakers most supportive of withdrawal.
“Junior members of Congress who have a longer time horizon” who don’t agree on much else, such as GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and left-wing darling Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, are more likely to support withdrawal, said Adam Weinstein, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft who served as a Marine in Afghanistan.
“The establishment arguably has less stake in the opinions of the general public than the junior members do,” he said.
While McConnell and Graham led efforts to rebuke Trump when he sought to withdraw from Afghanistan, other Republicans were more muted.
“They may have decided to silently oppose Trump when he was president, and now they can vocally oppose him,” Weinstein said.
Now, the scrutiny falls to Biden.
“Full withdrawal, I fear, means the collapse of Afghanistan as we know it,” tweeted former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah, who also worked as a Pentagon spokeswoman.
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“One of the reasons that the president made the decision he did is because he does not feel there’s a military solution for a 20-year war,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday. “[He] has long felt there was not a military solution. Diplomatic negotiations.”
She added, “We intend to continue to have a diplomatic presence on the ground in Kabul, even after we bring the servicemen and women home at the end of August.”
Biden was asked directly on Wednesday whether he was worried about Kabul falling. “I’ll speak to that tomorrow,” he replied.
“There’s going to be folks who disingenuously argue that the 2021 withdrawal will be to blame for all of the future dysfunction in Afghanistan,” Weinstein said. “It’s easy to blame all the violence we see post-withdrawal on the withdrawal itself. But in reality, that violence is a direct consequence of the intervention itself and the ever-expanding U.S. war effort in Afghanistan.”
