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Women and children wait outside the Taliban-controlled checkpoint near Abbey Gate at Kabul Airport, the day prior to the terrorist attack by ISIS-K suicide bombers. Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 25, 2021. (Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
As evacuations from Afghanistan wind down, the costs of the Biden administration’s botched withdrawal grow steeper by the day. A suicide bombing at Kabul airport's gates on Thursday left 13 U.S. troops and at least 169 Afghans dead, with hundreds more injured, and U.S. commanders warn that they expect such attacks to continue. While President Biden argues that "over-the-horizon" counterterrorism measures will prevent Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist safe haven, Thursday's attack shows that this claim is at odds with reality.
What can the U.S. do to prevent further loss in Afghanistan and repair the strategic damage caused by the withdrawal? This week, Hudson Senior Fellow and former Deputy National Security Adviser Dr. Nadia Schadlow hosted Japan Chair and former National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster; Adjunct Fellow and former National Security Council Senior Director Robert Greenway; and Senior Fellow and Pakistan's former Ambassador to the U.S. Husain Haqqani for a candid discussion on the treacherous path ahead for the U.S. and its allies.
Read key quotes from the event below, and join us next week for Bryan Clark and Dr. Dan Patt's conversation on the future of warfare with Department of Defense Chief Data Officer David Spirk and DARPA Strategic Technology Office Director Dr. Tim Grayson.
Key Quotes
Key quotes from Hudson's event, "Can We Prevent Further Calamity in Afghanistan?"
1. Pakistan: Ally or Adversary?
H.R. McMaster: The refugee crises are really perfect recruiting circumstances for jihadist terrorists. And of course, the situation in the frontier provinces and Uzbekistan is already destabilized. So I think that there is going to be a major ripple effect and it's going to hit Pakistan first.
We have an opportunity, even in this catastrophe, to rally others to isolate the worst actors. And those are the states that aid and abet jihadist terrorists. That now includes the Taliban that's in control in Afghanistan, but it also includes Pakistan. I'm reminded of our efforts back in 2017 to enlist our Gulf friends in an effort to isolate Pakistan, and convince Pakistan that it's in Pakistan's interest to go after these jihadist terrorist groups less selectively.
2. The Taliban Remains Committed to Violent Extremism
Husain Haqqani: [The Taliban will establish] a Sunni theocracy in Afghanistan, and they too will operate only within the parameters of their belief system. This assumption that somehow we'll dangle a few billion dollars and they will give up what they have fought for—look, the current emir of the Taliban, his son died in a suicide bombing. A man who lets his son be a suicide bomber certainly does not think about world affairs exactly the same way as the secretary of state of the United States does.
3. Jihadists Are Already Turning their Attention to Afghanistan
Rob Greenway: We're already seeing a reverberation on social media platforms and internal discussions between jihadi-affiliated groups. All of the attention that ISIS had in the day and all of its recruits, the gravity is now shifted back to Khorasan and Afghanistan and it has enormous momentum behind it. And we know, unfortunately, what this often results in is external operations will recommence [by jihadist groups]… We need to sustain our presence in Iraq and Syria. We don't need another withdrawal. In the coming days, it's going to be essential for us to shore up our presence where it remains and to increase our posture so that we can keep it.
4. "Over-the-horizon" Counterterrorism is a Myth
Nadia Schadlow: Over the past two years, [the U.S. military] had essentially shifted to a counterterrorism mission with about 2,500 troops there at any given time. It provided us with the eyes, ears, and a presence in the region. The idea of recreating something in the aftermath of this debacle, it just seems mind-boggling that we're making that argument especially when, in order to be effective in the counterterrorism domain, you have to work with local partners. What local partners are going to sign up to work with us elsewhere in the region?
Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.
Go Deeper
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Counterbalance | Ep. 25: Afghanistan, Assessing the Failing Withdrawal Is the foreign policy establishment to blame? Will the Taliban use the “Hezbollah-model” to find international sympathy in its governance of a fractured state? Rich Outzen, career military officer and former senior State Department advisor on the Middle East, rejoins Michael Doran and Marshall Kosloff on the Counterbalance podcast to diagnose the politics, strategy and military realities that led to the current collapse of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. |
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Now What? The Global Consequences of American Defeat in Afghanistan America’s precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the subsequent takeover by the Taliban will have grave consequences far beyond the immediate security and humanitarian crises. In the wake of this, Hudson experts Nadia Schadlow, Robert Greenway, Michael Doran, Rebeccah Heinrichs, Bryan Clark, John Lee, and Peter Rough weigh in on the geopolitical chain reaction they anticipate in areas including competition with China, the fight against global jihadism, and nuclear proliferation. |
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Help Afghan Refugees and They’ll Help America The crisis in Afghanistan is not only the Biden administration’s shame but America’s shame if the U.S. turns its back on the thousands of Afghans who risked everything to serve American forces, writes Arthur Herman in the Wall Street Journal. Throughout our history, immigrants who fled tyranny by coming to the U.S. have helped renew Americans’ faith in the country’s institutions and founding principles. We cannot leave these allies behind. |
