I have never ever wished a President more wish for success than I do Joe Biden. I’ve also been so heartened and enthusiastic about how much better a President he’s shown himself to be than I thought when I didn’t support his candidacy at first in the 2020 nomination race (Elizabeth Warren).
I wish Biden’s strength and success so fervently because I really do believe that the future nature of the United States — as a democracy, or not; as a good society, or not — depends on his success.
(We can start with the protection of Voting Rights, and go on to getting some necessary things in America changed by government action.)
Such are the political stakes right now that Joe Biden has been cast in the role of our hero.
Go Joe Go!
(I’m also very fond of him for his sheer decency. He seems to be as reliably on the side of making things better as Trump was on the side of making things worse.)
But this Afghanistan thing has me uncomfortable.
I know I want his poll numbers not to take a hit, and I want for him to walk out of this Afghanistan nightmare with good stature as the guy who had the courage to do what had to be done.
But…..I remain uncertain whether and in what ways we have to say that Biden really screwed up.
I have no real doubt about the goodness of Biden’s decision to end this, our longest war, that was not going to achieve anything.
The issue is not that decision. The issue is whether there was a better way to execute that decision.
(Was there a way to proceed in which we’d have looked good rather than looking dreadful as we do with the chaos in Kabul that has followed the Taliban’s complete takeover of the nation?)
I’ve heard Biden and others argue that there was no way that it could have been otherwise. I gather that there were political considerations with respect to the Afghan government, who hardly would have wanted signs of people fleeing the nation as they were presumably poised to fight the Taliban without American military assistance.
He tells us that nothing better could be done, but I’m having trouble believing that— though I’d love to.
And then today Biden said that the “great consensus” that reached him was that the Afghan military would resist the advance of the Taliban, and that we’d therefore have the precious benefit of time to deal with a steady trickle rather than this raging flood.
I believe Biden, about the consensus he heard. But the point cannot just be that “the unexpected happened” but must also be the consensus that reached the President turned out to be wrong. I’d want to find out how our best people didn’t know something so fundamental.
Biden has said “the buck stops here.” But one of those bucks has to be that the American power system fed the President of the United States a consensus that completely misread the situation.
And it warrants inquiry into the question: What’s wrong in the American power system that the consensus that reaches him — on something so fundamental as whether the Afghan structure the United States had worked to build for 20 years was solid enough to stand up and fight for itself — turns out to be completely wrong?
And I’d want to know, is there any point — on the road to this ugly scene — at which Biden should have known to proceed differently? (And if so, what’s to be learned.)
I would love to believe that he executed his part of this to the high standard that most everything else he’s done could be measured. And whether that’s true or not, I want Biden to emerge from this with no loss in his power to achieve his purposes.
But this Afghanistan thing has not been comfortable for me, with my dual allegiance to Biden and to the truth.
But after Biden tells us that the great consensus was wrong, Biden doesn’t flesh out “the buck stops here” and take responsibility for being commander-in-chief of an American power that could get something so profound so terribly wrong. That’s the only buck around so far.
I love Biden. But, if it’s warranted, and crucially if it can be done in a way that is politically beneficial, or at least not harming, I’d also like for him to acknowledging that “mistakes were made” by a system whose buck that stops at him. Biden has great political talents around him, perhaps they could find such a way.
(If not, I’ll support their pretending there’s no problem, that the decision was right and the consequences were inevitable. The stakes of Biden’s success are so high in so many areas, I will support whatever sleight of hand may be truly necessary — with all the consequences in mind.)