Leubsdorf: Biden’s missteps

More importantly, though, he failed to explain why, despite weeks of planning, his administration was so unprepared for the human, military and geopolitical disaster unfolding in Afghanistan.

While he proclaimed “the buck stops with me” as president, he portrayed himself as constrained by former President Donald Trump’s May 1 withdrawal date and the Afghan government’s pleas to slow withdrawal of Afghans with U.S. ties to avoid a panic.

The irony of the situation is that Biden, reflecting views he has held for years, made the difficult decision to implement the long overdue end of the two-decade U.S. role in Afghanistan, but he undercut the efficacy of his own action with his administration’s inept management.

As Biden noted, the way this unfolded underscored the fact that two decades of American support — billions in military and financial aid, plus thousands of lives — failed to give Afghans what they needed most: the will to fight for their independence.

In a more immediate sense, the events of the past week undercut the Biden administration’s carefully crafted portrayal of a government that combined a return to competence and normalcy at home with a reestablished leadership role abroad.

Initial judgments about the ultimate impact of seemingly cataclysmic events often prove exaggerated. But the bipartisan congressional criticism indicated Biden, at the least, has created doubts that could fester about his overall leadership, especially in the foreign policy area that was his reputed strength.

Before last weekend, polls showed strong support for Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, including a majority of Republicans. Initial post-decision sampling by Morning Consult shows a sharp drop, especially among Republicans and independents, and Republicans clearly hope to use this to weaken Biden more broadly, though the withdrawal ratified his GOP predecessor’s decision.

There is plenty of blame to go around.

It was President George W. Bush who turned the 2001 effort to destroy Afghanistan as a terrorist haven after al-Qaida’s 9/11 attacks into a nation-building effort.

Later, President Obama, while completing the withdrawal from Iraq that Bush began under congressional pressure, mounted a renewed effort to turn the tide in Afghanistan. It failed. Fighting continued, with a lower level of U.S. casualties.

Trump sharply cut U.S. troop strength and, after his peace effort stalled, announced he would withdraw the rest by May 1. That’s the decision Biden inherited, though he revised the timetable to complete the withdrawal just before next month’s 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that prompted the initial U.S. attack.

His hope was to celebrate on Sept. 11 both the success of the initial attacks to deter terrorism and the ending of the ensuing U.S. mission. Now, it’s likely to focus as much on how ineptly he did it — and how quickly the terrorists may return.