Biden criticised in US over 'shameful, Saigon-like abandonment of Kabul'
The departure is raising difficult questions about Biden's approach to the conflict, and creating a spiraling political calamity for a president who had promised to be a sure-handed steward of US foreign policy
US President Joe Biden has been criticised in his country over the decision to pull US troops out of Aghanistan and the "shameful, Saigon-like abandonment of Kabul".
Last month President Joe Biden defended his Afghanistan pullout by saying that "the likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely". The images of Taliban fighters inside the presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday, after a series of provincial capitals fell in rapid succession and the nation's president fled, showed how Biden's prediction has been wrong, reports Bloomberg.
Instead of an American-trained Afghan military staving off Taliban terrorists for months or longer, the US's longest war is ending with a hasty evacuation of diplomats from Kabul's airport.
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Their sudden departure is raising difficult questions about Biden's approach to the conflict, and creating a spiraling political calamity for a president who had promised to be a sure-handed steward of US foreign policy.
Biden's top aides fanned out across US networks Monday morning to defend the withdrawal, saying the focus is now on securing Kabul's airport and that Biden's worst option would be sending troops back in to fight the Taliban.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his deputy, Jon Finer, said that the situation in Afghanistan had deteriorated faster than any analyst expected, and chided the Afghan army for being unwilling to slow the Taliban advance.
In an interview with ABC, Sullivan downplayed the impact of the withdrawal on US counterterrorism efforts worldwide.
"We can fight terrorism effectively without having a large military footprint on the ground," he said.
"What the president was not prepared to do was enter a third decade of conflict."
Both Sullivan and Finer said they expected Biden to speak publicly on the matter soon, but didn't specify when.
While Americans were left recalling the harried final days of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, the US's biggest adversaries saw a potent sign of America's vulnerabilities and shaky claim to leadership after the tumult of the Trump years.
Even some close allies couldn't hide their frustration.
"Nobody wants Afghanistan, once again, to be a breeding ground for terror," U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Sunday.
"It's fair to say the US decision to pull out has accelerated things."
For Biden, the collapse was a punishing blow that may only worsen with time. The president had spent the early months of his administration basking in the glow of a ramped-up vaccination drive and budget and infrastructure deals meant to heal a struggling American economy.
With 6,000 US troops expected back in Afghanistan guarding its airport this week, Biden will have much to answer for. After he announced his decision in April to withdraw forces by September, Biden said the US would maintain an "over the horizon" capability to step back into Afghanistan if needed to counter terrorists.
But America's mission in Afghanistan, realistically or not, was long pitched as being about more than going after the perpetrators of the 11 September attacks.
Aid workers and contractors, backed by American and NATO military forces, poured billions of dollars into infrastructure projects and efforts to wean Afghan farmers off poppy production, the basis of the opium trade.
