Anatomy of a Catastrophe
17th September 2023
America marked a grim anniversary on August 30. That was the date, two years ago, when the United States ended its military presence in Afghanistan. The war that began there in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks lasted a full two decades. The war ended with a botched American retrograde that led directly to the deaths of 13 brave servicemen and thousands of stranded American citizens and Afghan allies.
The collapse of U.S. resolve to win the war reflected an impatience on the part of the American public, spurred on by populist and isolationist rhetoric that has steadily grown since the financial crisis of 2008. The negotiated defeat, which culminated with the Pentagon embarrassingly referring to the Taliban as our “Afghan partners,” began with President Barack Obama but continued through the administrations of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The duplicitous government of Qatar hosted the negotiations and guided the process of American surrender through all three administrations.
In the final analysis, however, the disastrous withdrawal—leading directly to unnecessary deaths, unmitigated chaos, and the return of the brutal Taliban government—is the responsibility of one man: President Joe Biden.