August 31 is the deadline for US troops to leave Afghanistan. The deadline was originally set by the United States itself, but has now been set by the Taliban as an ultimatum, putting US President Joe Biden in a rather ambiguous position.
If the US leaves Afghanistan following its own timetable by September 1, the Taliban will be able to call it "following our ultimatum," and any hesitation threatens with a new terrorist ping-pong match, with suicide bombers blowing up in public and US forces launching missiles at the premises of alleged terrorists, continuing the war on terror that had already begun in 2001.
Whatever is happening in Afghanistan today, it is now possible to put an end to all this protracted story and draw some conclusions. The once-popular idea that it is possible to introduce a Western-style democratic political system in a society to which it is organically foreign and in which there is armed resistance to "democratic" power has been empirically proven wrong. Unfortunately, it may be too early to call this an ending, as it is difficult to predict how the situation in Afghanistan will continue to develop and, above all, how these events will affect the Islamic world as a whole.
Let us remember that by the end of this year, it is planned to withdraw most of the US military contingent from Iraq, leaving only specialists who will help train the Iraqi armed forces. Based on the empirical "discovery" mentioned in the previous paragraph, it is attempted to predict which will be the next Saigon and Kabul. There's a high possibility that it could be Baghdad, although the Iraqi capital has a much better chance of avoiding the fate of these two cities, which have become symbols of chaotic escape, as the events in Kabul should serve as a harsh but useful lesson. If the Biden administration studied this lesson diligently, it could prepare more carefully for leaving Iraq. Unfortunately, the thousand-year experience of mankind shows that one rarely learns from the mistakes of history, so it will not be a surprise if the name of Iraq reappears in the headlines of political news in the coming years.
The realization that the military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq is costly, cumbersome, unpopular and, above all, meaningless became the view of Washington's "deep state" mainstream already in the end period of George W. Bush's presidency. It was the actions of Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and other neocons in the Middle East that initiated a sharp rise in the popularity of isolationist policies in U.S. society in the coming years.
Barack Obama before his election promised to withdraw troops from Iraq within 16 months, and this promise was repeated after he arrived at the White House. Reality (instability in the Arab world and the emergence of the Islamic State) forced him to abandon this promise. Donald Trump saying that the US "cannot continue to be the policeman of the world" was one of the cornerstones of his foreign policy, and he was ready to leave more than just these countries. Of course, in his own style, without thinking much about what will happen there afterwards. However, general opposition to Trump's political principles prevented him from realizing his intentions. The withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq was undertaken by Biden, who has never been a supporter of these campaigns.
While most Americans support the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, August 15 videos from Kabul profoundly impacted Biden's popularity. What matters is not so much the percentage points by which his rating fell (perhaps not very much - 7% points), but how the attitudes of his supportive media have changed so far. If until August 15 the mainstream (read: anti-Trump) media had treated Biden quite leniently, then, after the videos from Kabul Airport, this protection (critiquing with kid gloves) was over. Biden was critiqued almost no less sharply than Trump ever was.
One thing that became popular among political commentators was comparing Biden with Jimmy Carter, who was unfortunate enough to be President of the United States during the 1979 anti-American Islamic Revolution in Iran and on April 24, 1980, US paratroopers carried out a hugely unsuccessful hostage-relief operation from the US Embassy in Tehran (8 US soldiers and one Iranian civilian died). In the November presidential election, Carter lost heavily to his opponent, a former actor and California's governor (back when Republicans could still win in California), Ronald Reagan.
Today's observers emphasize that there are still three years until the next election and Biden's failure will be forgotten, and then the voters will have other issues on the agenda. It is very likely that it will be so, but it may happen differently. If in Iraq there happens something similar to what is happening in Afghanistan, then the whole security architecture of the rest of the world may collapse like dominos. All the more so because there are quite a few players who would not mind reshuffling the cards.
The fact that Biden fell asleep a bit during talks with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett may be a bad sign, which symbolically indicates that the main "driver" of world security tends to fall asleep at the wheel. Thus, the question heard these days - after Carter came Reagan, who will come after Biden, may turn out to be interchangeable with another question. Will Biden manage to keep his place in the White House until the end of his term? Could it not be the same as with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who had to announce his resignation before the end of his term?
Hasn't the US political class inadvertently run into a bear's den (still sleeping in hibernation) while fleeing from a wolf (Trump)?
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