What Are the Repercussions of the Republicans Launching Probe Into Chaotic Afghanistan on the Biden Administration?

The chaos that caused a sensation in 2021 is back to the fore again; the Republican Party, which holds the majority in the US House of Representatives, is opening an extensive parliamentary probe into the method of withdrawal from Afghanistan, with the aim of holding the Joe Biden administration accountable for the step it took two years ago.

In August 2021, Democratic President Joe Biden withdrew his country’s forces from Afghanistan, thus ending the longest war the United States fought, during which about 2,500 US troops were killed, but the chaos that accompanied those withdrawals, as well as the return of the Taliban to power, have put the Biden administration in the face of intense criticism. In addition to the killing of 13 US troops during the evacuations on August 26, 2021, when a car bomb exploded in the vicinity of Kabul Airport, which left 173 dead in total.

In August 2022, Republicans on the Foreign Affairs Committee released a report on minority members of the committee criticizing the Biden administration for sloppy planning for evacuations from Afghanistan, while the White House responded that the report was full of inaccurate information.

It is noteworthy that the US State Department conducted its own review of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, but it has not yet published its findings on a large scale, while sources told CNN that the report ended more than 10 months ago.

 

Chaotic Withdrawal

The August 2021 withdrawal probe from Afghanistan is just one of many investigations against the Biden administration that House Republicans have begun to push forward.

On January 12, 2023, the Republicans launched a parliamentary probe into the manner in which the Biden administration evacuated US forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, during which 13 US troops were killed in an attack targeting the vicinity of Kabul airport, as reported by CNN.

The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives, Michael McCaul, announced that he had asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken for a series of documents, especially those related to intelligence notes or contacts with the Taliban, in addition to the repercussions of the withdrawal, which he described as chaotic.

He also demanded access to letters exchanged by State Department employees between 2020 and 2021 about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, and the possible consequences of Biden’s rapid withdrawal from there, in addition to information related to cooperation and communication between US agencies regarding the coordination of the withdrawal, as well as documents on the relationship between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and between the Taliban and the Haqqani network.

The Republican Rep. also demanded that the Biden administration hand over any information about meetings it has held with the Taliban since January 20, 2021, and an assessment of the number of Americans still in Afghanistan today, in addition to a breakdown of the number of Afghans who have been evacuated.

McCaul said it is absurd and scandalous that President Joe Biden’s administration has repeatedly rejected our requests for scrutiny and continues to withhold information about the withdrawal, noting that in the event of refusal, the committee will not hesitate to move to a binding process.

McCaul gave the US administration until January 26, 2023, to hand over these files to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which is expected to hold public hearings on this issue.

On its part, the US State Department affirmed its commitment to working with congressional committees authorized to oversee US foreign policies and assist them in conducting oversight of their legitimate legislative goals.

As of November 2022, the Department said, “We have provided more than 150 briefings to lawmakers and staff on Afghanistan addressing an array of topics.”

It is noteworthy that former Republican President Donald Trump was the one who negotiated the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan when he was in the White House, but Republicans have long criticized the chaotic manner in which Democratic President Joe Biden carried out the evacuation.

On August 31, 2021, the Pentagon announced the final end of the process of withdrawing US forces from Afghanistan and the end of a military mission that took nearly two decades, which came after an extended air evacuation that took more than two weeks during which about 124,000 Americans and Afghan civilians who worked with US forces during that period were evacuated.

 

Negative Repercussions

During the past months, a number of Republican leaders pledged to open several parliamentary investigations that would paralyze the White House during the remaining two years of President Joe Biden’s rule, which was with their receiving the majority in the House of Representatives, and in the midst of the sharp political polarization that dominated their relationship with the Democrats.

Observers expect that the House of Representatives will be preoccupied during the years 2023 and 2024 with conducting investigations more than it is preoccupied with issuing legislation, which would freeze any hopes of passing more legislation supporting Biden’s broad agenda.

The first move of the Republicans against the Biden administration was the file of withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of its occupation, which led to a significant decline in America’s global image and left negative repercussions on its credibility among its military allies.

It is believed that the Biden administration left the Afghan army hostage in the hands of the Taliban, which allowed it to control it and its US military equipment, which amounts to a hundred billion dollars.

Many Americans compared the fall of Kabul to the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese in 1975, while the Republicans also tried to promote the idea that Biden lost the war in Afghanistan and that he would bear direct responsibility if the Taliban abused the Afghans who cooperated with the US army.

Republicans accused Biden of being responsible for the decline in the field of women’s rights in Afghanistan, which witnessed a sad chapter two weeks ago when the Taliban government prevented girls from attending high schools and universities, restricted the freedom of women and girls, and excluded them from most professions.

They also believe that Biden’s policy towards Afghanistan has harmed the national security of the United States.

On August 16, 2022, that is, coinciding with the first anniversary of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, a Republican report warned of the possibility of America’s enemies benefiting from former members of the Afghan Special Forces who were trained by the US and who are still in that region, as reported by the American magazine Foreign Policy.

The report indicated that those former soldiers remained in Afghanistan after the end of the evacuations conducted by Washington, whether through conscription or coercion.

The report said that the Biden administration failed to prioritize the evacuation of those soldiers trained by the US military during the withdrawal that took place between August 14 and August 30, 2021.

The Republican report also concluded that these former soldiers could be recruited or forced to work for one of America’s opponents who maintain a presence in Afghanistan, such as Russia, China, or Iran, describing this possibility as a great danger to national security, because these Afghans know the tactics, methods, and procedures of the US army and intelligence services.

In turn, John Sopko, the US special inspector general tapped with tracking some $146 billion in reconstruction, said: “We need to open up that ugly history book called the 20 years in Afghanistan and see why we fail.”

He added in statements to Reuters on August 11, 2022, that “these lessons are especially crucial now as the administration pumps billions of dollars of assistance into Ukraine’s fight against Russia.”

 

Biden’s Popularity

Afghanistan is no longer a priority for the current US administration as its foreign policy has been transformed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

A Gallup poll revealed that 50% of Americans believe that the war in Afghanistan was a mistake, in contrast to the near-consensus that prevailed after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and justified the invasion of Afghanistan and the fall of the Taliban that followed.

In turn, Adam Weinstein, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute, took issue with the argument that it has been a big stain on US credibility.

“Americans worry about inflation, student debt, and divisions in the country, and they certainly don’t think about the aftermath of the withdrawal when for many of them the war was far away,” he added.

The images of the chaotic US withdrawal at Kabul airport had shocked and were supposed to cause a sharp decline in the popularity of President Biden, who was elected on a program based on renewal and the imposition of US leadership after the turbulent years of his predecessor Donald Trump’s rule.

According to data from the Brookings Institution for Studies in Washington, Biden’s support for withdrawing from Afghanistan decreased from 58% in July 2021 to 34% in late August 2021.

In conjunction with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, a poll published by the Washington Post and ABC News revealed that the Biden administration for the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan witnessed 60% dissatisfaction with 30% support.

However, the war in Afghanistan, which spanned the terms of four successive presidents, is of course not the only reason for Biden’s decline in popularity, as there was also the Covid-19 pandemic, which doubled in severity during that period.

A year after withdrawing from Afghanistan, the Democratic president’s popularity has slowly risen, especially thanks to a series of legislative achievements.

According to what was mentioned by the Axios website in August 2022, Biden had proven that the US is able to continue the war on terrorism without the presence of forces on the ground, as when he ordered a drone strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri on July 31, 2022, in Kabul.

It is noteworthy that Biden had started the year 2023 with a significant decline in his popularity, as a result of which the percentage of satisfaction with his policies decreased to 39%, as the majority of Americans do not now agree with the president’s performance of the duties of his position, but rather consider him a failure in the task of uniting them, according to the results of a poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos.

The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives means that Biden’s legislative agenda is essentially dead unless he can find compromises and bipartisan support for some proposals that benefit them both.