Biden’s ‘swaggering faith in himself’ left White House ill-prepared as Taliban took over Afghanistan: bombshell book
WASHINGTON – President Biden overestimated his own competence in foreign affairs ahead of the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, making unhelpful and impractical suggestions while displaying a “swaggering faith in himself” that left his administration unprepared for the devastating chaos of the evacuation of Kabul, according to a forthcoming book.
In “The Last Politician,” due out Sept. 5, and excerpted by The Atlantic Tuesday, magazine staff writer Franklin Foer says the 80-year-old commander-in-chief “exhibited determination, even stubbornness, despite furious criticism from the establishment figures whose approval he usually craved” over his decision to end the US presence in Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021, after two decades.
“For a man vaunted for his empathy, he could be detached, even icy, when confronted with the prospect of human suffering,” Foer wrote of Biden, who was caught apparently looking at his watch while attending the dignified transfer of 13 service members killed in an ISIS-K suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport and allegedly told the mother of one of the victims that her son’s death was just like that of his late son Beau.
“When it came to foreign policy,” Foer added, “Joe Biden possessed a swaggering faith in himself.”
So strong was that faith that Biden, once described by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates as having been “wrong on nearly every major foreign-policy and national-security issue over the past four decades,” viewed experienced diplomats and pundits as “risk adverse, beholden to institutions [and] lazy in their thinking,” according to the book.
The president distrusted officials who warned him against ending the war too soon, and pushed past the apprehensions of the nation’s top military officials who cautioned about the risks of removing all US forces from Afghanistan just seven months after taking office.
“One aide recalled that he would say, ‘You foreign policy guys, you think this is all pretty complicated. But it’s just like family dynamics,'” Foer wrote of Biden, adding that in the president’s assessment: “Foreign affairs was sometimes painful, often futile, but really it was emotional intelligence applied to people with names that were difficult to pronounce.”
“Diplomacy, in Biden’s view, was akin to persuading a pain-in-the-ass uncle to stop drinking so much,” Foer added.
Biden’s commitment to his wisdom continued through the hectic evacuation mission, as he reportedly “would pepper [then-Ambassador to Afghanistan John Bass] with ideas for squeezing more evacuees through the gates” of the airport, most of which were all but impossible given the circumstances on the ground.
“The president’s instinct was to throw himself into the intricacies of troubleshooting. ‘Why don’t we have them meet in parking lots? Can’t we leave the airport and pick them up?'” Foer wrote.
“Bass would kick around Biden’s proposed solutions with colleagues to determine their plausibility, which was usually low.”
The problem with many of Biden’s suggestions, in Foer’s words, was that the US “didn’t have the troops or the will to secure Kabul.” Afghan forces had walked away from their positions in the capital without putting up any resistance, while the Americans had abandoned the larger Bagram Airfield an hour north of Kabul in early July — giving looters time to swipe what they could before Afghan forces took over.
Though former President Donald Trump had put the withdrawal in motion during his presidency with the Doha Agreement it was Biden’s decision to honor it, according to the book – a decision that “would need to be made in a sprint.”
Despite the advice of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, Biden chose to remove all troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021 — the 20-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
“Although he never officially complained about it, Milley didn’t understand the decision,” Foer wrote.
“How did it honor the dead to admit defeat in a conflict that had been waged on their behalf?”
Though Biden overruled Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s advice to keep a contingent of US troops in the country, he ultimately agreed to change the withdrawal date to Aug. 31, which Foer called “an implicit concession that [the White House] had erred” in picking the emotional milestone as the war’s end.
But that change only expedited the withdrawal — even as diplomats and military officers warned of a strengthening Taliban, which would ultimately overthrow the US-supported Afghan government on Aug. 15, 2021, as American troops were in the middle of the evacuation mission.
As early as June 2021, national security adviser Jake Sullivan “began to worry that the Pentagon had pulled American personnel and materiel out of Afghanistan too precipitously,” according to Foer.
The “rapid drawdown” of US forces in the country — which began that May — “had allowed the Taliban to advance and win a string of victories” against the Afghan military, which “caught the administration by surprise.”
Gen. Frank McKenzie, then head of US Central Command, soon warned that evacuation efforts should begin sooner, filing an estimate that Kabul could be “surrounded within about 30 days — a far faster collapse than previously predicted.”
But the Biden administration failed to heed McKenzie’s advice, with the State Department delaying the start of the evacuation mission “to avoid cultivating a sense of panic in Kabul” — a sentiment that Foer wrote was backed by the CIA.
The pullout would not be declared until mid-August, after Milley begged Sullivan to push Biden to make the call with the Taliban under 100 miles from Kabul.
“The intelligence community assumed that the Taliban wouldn’t storm Kabul until after the United States left, because the Taliban wanted to avoid a block‑by‑block battle for the city,” Foer wrote.
“But the proximity of the Taliban to the embassy and HKIA was terrifying. It necessitated the decisive action that the administration had thus far resisted.”
That led diplomats with just three days to abandon the US embassy, which the State Department had planned to keep open even after the last troops left.
As anxiety grew among the Afghan people afraid of life — and death – under the Taliban, thousands stormed the airport when military evacuation flights began on Aug. 16, 2021.
“The Americans needed the Taliban to help control the crowds that had formed outside the airport — and to implement systems that would allow passport and visa holders to pass through the throngs,” Foer wrote.
“But the Taliban were imperfect allies at best. Their checkpoints were run by warriors from the countryside who didn’t know how to deal with the array of documents being waved in their faces.”
As a US C-17 Globemaster carrying supplies for arriving US troops landed that day, the plane “was rushed by a surge of civilians.”
Overwhelmed, the crew shut the jet’s entry points and were giving permission to flee, according to Foer.
As the plane took off, some Afghans clung to the outside of the aircraft, rising thousands of feet into the air before falling to their deaths in sickening footage broadcast around the world — most prominently on social media.
Ultimately, the humanitarian evacuation mission that Biden hadn’t initially intended to conduct crumbled into desperation, in turn bringing fierce criticism that the president continues trying to dodge two years later.
According to Foer, “everything [Biden had] witnessed from his seat in the Situation Room confirmed his belief that exiting a war without hope was the best and only course.”
As for the angry reaction, Biden considered it “overheated,” reportedly telling an aide that “either the press is losing its mind, or I am.”
