In his Wednesday speech about the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden challenged Americans to name a “single objective” the country has “failed on” without offering a satisfactory answer himself. While the president was “proud” of the Afghanistan withdrawal – which took place nearly two years ago and resulted in the deaths of 13 American military personnel– a later review largely blamed former President Donald Trump for its mismanagement and its dismal conclusion.
The review published in April criticized Trump for having started the drawdown of U.S. troops, and negotiating a withdrawal deadline for May 1 of 2021, without providing Biden with a plan on how to complete the withdrawal. The Biden administration was instead “confronted with difficult realities” and had to scramble together a strategy to “stop the stalemate from getting worse” by sending additional troops into harm’s way.
By no means was the attempt to address such a complicated issue in a short period of time a valiant one. The Afghanistan withdrawal called into question both Biden’s and Trump’s difficult stance on foreign policy, as well as their incapacity to anticipate further risks. Not only did they fail to provide a concrete plan for withdrawal, but they failed to express any remorse for the number of American and Afghani lives that were taken due to the poor planning and hasty decision-making process.
Furthermore, the president’s questioning of “name me a single objective we’ve ever set out to accomplish that we failed on” during his address was an ill-timed one, as the statement could be applied to numerous policy decisions made in the preceding administration. Biden’s leadership style has been heavily criticized in many regards specifically since his infamous statement on the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Biden’s presidency has indeed been fraught with mishaps, a situation that is only made worse when the discussion is related to foreign affairs. The Afghanistan withdrawal was a tragedy that will never be forgotten, and the president should be held accountable for his lethargic approach to the management of such a critical issue.