Britain has grown used to a strong America. Now, it must contend with a weak leadership in retreat
DOUGLAS MURRAY
27 August 2021 • 8:00pm
The White House’s press spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, made an interesting claim earlier this week. Asked about America’s disastrous exit from Afghanistan, she refused to hear any criticism. The US was overseeing an operation that is now on track to be the largest airlift in American history, she said. “So no, I would not say that it is anything but a success.”
That is an interesting redefinition of the word “success”. Though it is in line with a style that has marked out America of late. The nation’s sporting stars like to single themselves out for a range of skills: best taking of the knee; strongest raising of the fist; fastest turning of the back on the national anthem. The world’s other nations send their athletes to international events in order to win. While America each time gets caught up in another round of self-absorbed gesture-politics.
Similarly much of the world outside of America believes that, if you use your armed forces, you should use them in order to win. Only a White House under this current administration would actively be seeking praise for a defeat. It is success solely in a category of America’s own making: biggest retreat ever, in record-breaking time.
Outside of the White House there is nobody who could consider anything about the past weeks to be a success. Even some of President Biden’s Amen-chorus in the US media are starting to worry. The portrayal of Biden as a knowledgeable, capable and wise leader has not survived its first encounter with reality. Every day has seen a new array of retreats. Often from claims that the White House made just a few days before.
At the start of this week, for example, both Psaki and her boss were still insisting that no Americans would be left behind in Afghanistan. Then they said that there could be, but they would get them out. By the week’s end they were reduced to saying that although they might not get everyone out before the deadline of the end of the month, they would try to get them out after that.
Similarly, although the US retreat was not meant to arm the Taliban, it now transpires that America left behind billions of dollars in armaments as well as the biometric data of Afghans who helped the West. Leaving the Taliban with almost everything it needs to hunt down those Afghans who thought that the Americans were their friends.
Such retreats have become a trend of the Biden White House. It was the same last month when the Afghan national army was said to be more than capable of standing on its own two feet. A claim that also did not survive its first encounter with reality. Then we had the President’s insistence that al-Qaeda is “gone” from Afghanistan. Only for suicide bombers to turn up at Kabul airport on Thursday and massacre at least 90 Afghans waiting to be evacuated. That attack has been claimed by Islamic State in Afghanistan. So not precisely al-Qaeda. But it all adds up to much of a muchness when the body parts are flying across the terminal.
In the ultimate temptation to hubris, earlier this week the Biden administration was still boasting that no US service personnel had been killed in Afghanistan since last year. But that boast also proved too tempting for the various jihadis in Afghanistan. Thirteen US soldiers were also killed on Thursday in the suicide bombings and resulting assault by gunmen. It was the deadliest day for the US military in Afghanistan for a decade. More attacks are expected.
In response to all this the President appeared on television. Even for Biden at this stage in his career it was a fumbling, bumbling performance which gave out exactly the opposite of the reassurance which the American and international publics need. The President seemed to completely lose his train of thought at several stages, appeared to be on the brink of tears, stared at the cameras as though through a fog and flipped his way through his presidential briefing binder. “They gave me a list here,” he said. “The first person I was instructed to call on was Kelly O’Donnell from NBC.” This was the equivalent of reading out “President speaks” and “Pause” while reading from a teleprompter.
It was not just the infirmity which were on such painful display, but a visible manifestation of the global weakness that Biden now embodies. Over a dozen US servicemen had just been killed and Americans needed reassurance. Biden remembered to say that America “would not forgive” the massacre of its troops. Which must have had the Taliban and others quaking. He then vowed to “hunt down” the people responsible. Though of course hunting down successful suicide bombers is not as easy as it sounds.
By any estimation the first seven months of the Biden presidency have been a devastating period for America’s standing in the world. There are pros and cons to the American presence in Afghanistan as there are to its leaving. But the manner of the withdrawal and the range of basic incompetence on display is something that the rest of the world will not easily forget.
America’s competitors – principally China – will be very happy about it. America’s enemies – particularly jihadist groups around the world – will be emboldened by it. And America’s friends and allies will, understandably, continue to be deeply worried.
A poll out this week charted favourable versus unfavourable opinions about America since the fall of Kabul. Many countries had a smallish fall-off in favourability ratings towards the US. But one of the countries with the biggest changes was the UK. This country saw a 10 point drop in favourability ratings towards the United States. And while to many of us that is deeply regrettable it is also understandable.
For the last century this country, like our allies across Europe, has looked to the United States as the guarantor of the global world order. The world’s top policeman, if you will. Most of us have had criticisms of it, but of all the nations who might like to be the world’s policeman, the US was far and away the most benign and the most sympathetic to our own worldview.
The move from a British and European-based world order to an American-based world order was perhaps the smoothest transfer in world history. Our values aligned. Our cultural and economic models were in sync. And while America did the heavy lifting (and spending) to protect the global order, we were happy, as were the Europeans, to pay our way in supporting the US in turn.
Now all of this looks vulnerable. The way in which America has treated its allies on the ground in Afghanistan will worry any potential friend of the US. While the way in which Biden has treated his allies – principally by ignoring us – will worry all of us in turn.
America will survive the fall of Kabul. But the question now is whether the world can survive another three and a half years of Joe Biden.
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