In 2001 bin Laden bit the hand which likely fed him and attacked the United States.
Afghanistan had undergone over 20 years of war already, starting with the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, followed by a brutal civil war which the Taliban won in 1994. They then decided to attack the United States only 7 years later.
As a result, the United States went in to take out their support of international terrorism and prevent future attacks coming from Afghanistan. The cheapest way to do this is through nation building. The least expensive way in terms of both lives and money. Giving people options and building a civil society reduces the number of potential recruits for terrorist organizations, at a very low cost for taxpayers.
This was the status quo for twenty years and the literacy rate in Afghanistan increased rapidly. As soon as Trump became president we reduced our investment in Afghani literacy, leading to his verbal agreement with the Taliban to give them control of the country, which is exactly what happened.
During the time we were in Afghanistan under Bush and Obama we continued to invest in Afghani education which was a very good investment.
Afghanistan was not highly rated on indices under the Islamic Republic scoring at 2.85/10 in 2020 on the democracy index. There was a lot of corruption, a lot of poverty, and lots of work to do. But at least girls were going to school.
But nowadays they are the lowest ranked country in the world according to the Economist Democracy Index. It had a poor score on par with Egypt and Cuba, and today they are rated lower than North Korea.
Al Qaeda has been increasing its network of training camps in Afghanistan now that the Taliban controls the country. If you don’t think they will attack the United States and our allies, you are a fool.
Terrorism is going to increase as a result of the unratified Trump/Biden agreement.
People know this, as we can see with how the withdrawal from Afghanistan was the lynchpin which moved Biden from net approval to net disapproval. Biden did not have any significant wins to counteract his loss in Afghanistan. He had a major loss in 2022 6 months after the withdrawal when Russia invaded Ukraine. He had a further loss in 2023 when Hamas kidnapped 30 Israeli citizens.
He lost the midterms.
He did not have any significant wins to counteract his three major foreign policy losses.
No one really cares about the reasons why. The United States is the most powerful country in the world. We alone have the power to deter terrorist groups and rogue states into compliance. We alone have the ability to send a large amount of weapons or troops to any place in the world to keep the peace. No other country in the history of the world has had the amount of military power the United States has today. No other country has more alliances. No other government has more information than us.
Which means that when a terrorist group launches a surprise attack anywhere in the world like happened from Gaza we must ask how much the United States knew? What could we have done to prevent it? Why didn’t we?
When Russia invades its neighbors, what information did we already have to know of the pending attack? Why didn’t we send significant military equipment to Ukraine before the invasion to prevent the attack in the first place? Why did we put significant barriers towards Ukraine using the weapons we did send them from the beginning? What was going through Biden’s mind?
Nuclear war? Give me a break. Send them missile defense systems to block the missiles like we have given to Israel.
The truth is that after these massive failures Biden has not had a single success. Biden has not been the major voice speaking out for Ukraine. Leaders in former Warsaw Pact colonies and Macron have done far more than Biden has as a percentage of GDP, along with fewer restrictions. Biden has been far more like Scholz, Merkel, and Starmer.
Biden was played like a fiddle with the situation in Gaza, which brought down his presidency.
There are a lot of lessons from the Biden presidency which we need to learn to do better in the future. Republicans are obviously going to be worse.
We cannot afford to make these mistakes again.
The next time we have a Democratic president we need someone who is unabashadly Atlanticist. Someone who opposes authoritarianism, and is willing to use all available tools to strenghten democracies and preserve the peace.
We need a president who will bring us closer to our allies. Cut down on visa restrictions, end ESTA, and bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO.
That’s the type of foreign policy victory which will allow the next Democratic president to win reelection.