Important context to grasp the gravity of the geopolitical blunder now unfolding: America went to war in Afghanistan after the 9/11 hijackers were awarded U.S. visas by the State Department and then murdered almost 3,000 Americans, felled the Twin Towers & set Pentagon ablaze.1/
The states rationale for staying all these years was “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.” No one ever explained why a better solution wasn’t to deny entry to jihadists or their ideological sympathizers around the world. 2/
Strangely, many in the foreign policy establishment opposed Pres Trump’s travel bans & visa curbs to keep violent extremists & their supporters from gaining entry to United States—including of course Pres Biden who has terminated those curbs & restrictions on high-risk entry. 3/
It’s now an inevitability, after Biden’s staggeringly incompetent exit, that an exodus will try to leave Afghanistan—eventually millions. Most will have never worked for US government or fought the Taliban. Like Syrians, Somalis, many will end up in regional UN refugee camps.4/
The State Department, using Biden’s debacle as pretext, will try to being as many of the UN-selected refugees to the U.S as possible (instead of regional placement. This will persist for decades. Somali resettlement dominated US refugee program decades after black hawk down. 5/
Because State Dept does not have ideological screen, and because records will be sparse to non-existent, meaningful security checks will be impossible. Once the diaspora is relocated here, chain migration kicks in as opposed to theoretically more rigorous refugee screening. 6/
As France has experienced from its own military misadventures, the picture then becomes complex. Some arrivals don’t assimilate. Others hold more extreme beliefs. Some blame host country for what happened to their home. Sometimes 2nd or 3rd generation becomes radicalized. 7/
Bottom line: if we are not careful, all we could have to show for 20 years in Afghanistan is a failed terror state, a humanitarian catastrophe, and an immigration policy that has brought the threat of jihadism inside our shores. 8/
If we want to safely and effectively assist the *millions* of people likely leaving Afghanistan, the focus must be on regional resettlement—not mass relocation inside the United States. 9/9
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