President Joe Biden was nowhere to be seen in the first 48 hours after his administration’s record was tainted, probably permanently, by the catastrophic intelligence failure that handed victory to the Taliban in Afghanistan. His decision to break away from his Camp David vacation and finally speak to the nation Monday afternoon was a disappointing attempt at damage repair for a withdrawal debacle that has bruised the national ego and shredded America’s image abroad.
Biden will have trouble living down the embarrassment of having confidently declared barely six weeks ago that the U.S. withdrawal wouldn’t produce another Saigon — scenes of Vietnam chaos as military helicopters lifted people off the roof of the U.S. Embassy in 1975. Biden also asserted on July 8 — again with complete confidence — that the 300,000-strong Afghan military would be able to hold its own and fend off a Taliban attempt to seize major cities. The chances of a Taliban takeover, he said, was “highly unlikely.”
Well, he couldn’t have been more wrong, and he deserves to be reminded of it again and again by his Republican critics. Biden’s credibility was shot long before he finally addressed the nation on Monday. He tried to blame others, even to the point of outright misstating the facts when it came to peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban. The Taliban, from the beginning, refused to talk with the government. Biden chose to honor an agreement the Trump administration reached with the Taliban knowing it was deeply flawed and completely excluded the Kabul government from the process — ensuring that government’s eventual defeat.
