Thread by @calxandr

1. Reading these remarks has been an acutely painful experience for me. The falsehoods, the callous inhumanity, the pusillanimity of this ham-fisted bid to dress up disaster as 'necessary unpleasantness' are truly shocking, presaging new calamities.

whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…

2. At bottom, this ill-tempered screed is a new manifesto for isolationism. For @JoeBiden, the US has not role 'remaking' other countries. It won't defend the basic principles of the UN Charter. Democracy isn't even mentioned. This is Trumpism re-branded for WaPo/NYT readers.

3. It's also a reprise of the 2011 @benrhodes doctrine, eagerly championed by VP Biden, that threw Syria to the wolves, hoping Putin would choke on the carcass. Instead we got escalating genocide, invasion, proxy wars, polarization, refugee crises & the retreat of democracy.

4. Does no one remember that abandoning Afghanistan in 1989 led to the creation of Al Qaida & 12 years later the largest attack against the US mainland since the war of 1812? Did no one read the June 1, 2021 12th report of the Analytical Support & Sanctions Monitoring Team?

5. The summary alone states that "large numbers of Al-Qaida fighters & other foreign extremist elements aligned with the Taliban are located in various parts of Afghanistan. (...) The primary component of the Taliban in dealing with Al-Qaida is the Haqqani Network (TAe.012)."

6. The report continues: "Ties between the two groups remain close, based on ideological alignment, relationships forged through common struggle & intermarriage. The Taliban has begun to tighten its control over Al-Qaida (...)."

7. It also states that, "Al-Qaida & like-minded militants continue to celebrate developments in Afghanistan as a victory for the Taliban’s cause & thus for global radicalism." Imagine how the fall of Kabul on August 15 has added to their joy & inflated their ambitions.

8. So Biden's comments on US vital national interest in Afghanistan, including his claim that "Al Qaida was decimated," are either eye-wash for a war-weary public or misstatements by a commander-in-chief who has not been fully briefed. They are certainly not leadership.

9. But one feature of Biden's speech was eerily déjà vu, telling & decidedly dangerous amidst all the bluster about the futility of 'forever war', the need for 'clear, achievable goals' & 'tough, unforgiving, targeted, precise strategy that goes after terror where it is today'.

10. Even with US forces out of Afghanistan, no longer reliant on GLOCs/ALOCs involving Pakistani territory or airspace, Biden could still bring himself to name the Taliban's creator & sponsor, Al Qaida's constant host -- the true author of US & allied humiliation in Afghanistan.

11. It remains in the US vital national interest (i) to end Pakistan's hybrid war, which now continues: (ii) to sanction Pakistan as a leading state sponsor of terror; (iii) to hold GHQ to account for executing a terrorist invasion of Afghanistan under the world's nose.

12. Biden did not have to 'leave or escalate.' It is mind-numbingly disingenuous to argue these were the only choices. He could also easily have jettisoned the Trump administration's Faustian bargain, which was so clearly a product of the nihilism of that administration.

13. Instead Biden chose to retain a deal that empowered America's enemies, destroyed institutions Afghans had built over two decades, & left a country on the verge of ruin. He did this even though the Taliban & their cohorts had not delivered on a single commitment.

14. In this refusal to confront the reality of Pakistan's role, there is a moral & strategic blindness that is unprecedented in the annals of US foreign policy. Biden embodies an extreme version of this pathology, which has cost & will cost the US & all democracies dearly.

15. Biden mentioned how eager China & Russia were for the US to remain embroiled in Afghanistan. They are even more delighted to see the US humiliated by Biden's bull-headed insistence on retaining the de facto alliance with the Taliban hatched by Khalilzad, Pompeo & Trump.

16. China & Russia see the shocking renewed success of Pakistan's hybrid war as a great boon to their plans to weaken the economies & institutions of all democracies. Their greatest fear is a united effort by the US with @NATO, Quad & other allies to confront this threat.

17. But to begin rallying support, this US administration needs to quit pretending the Taliban is a potential partner. It needs to tell the truth about Pakistan's role & hold to account those responsible for their benighted agenda of global jihad, invasion & strategic depth.

18. I write this as a US ally that saw firsthand the thirst for democracy & peace in Afghanistan & region. Yes, I am angry. Also incredulous that no US president has yet named the state responsible for doing the most harm to US influence, interests & prestige in th 21st century.

*not bring himself

19. @JoeBiden invokes the name of his son Beau, an Iraq war veteran, to illustrate how millions of 'veterans & their families have gone through hell.' The Iraq war should never have happened, as @POTUS admitted as early as 2005 -- only two years after it began.

20. But early skepticism about sending US forces to Afghanistan, expressed as early as 2001, did not prevent Biden from being one of 77 US senators that authorized the use of force in Iraq in October 2002 -- a vote he has struggled to explain ever since. nytimes.com/2020/01/12/us/…

21. But there is deeper lesson here: both wars might never have happened -- 800,000 US military members might never have served in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021 -- had the US not abandoned Afghanistan in 1988-89, opening the door to three more decades of solo dirty wars by GHQ.

22. Democrats & Republicans used to acknowledge this strategic misstep: @HillaryClinton was clear-eyed in arguing 9/11 might never have happened had the US not withdrawn from region twelve years earlier. Biden is repeating this costly error on a far greater scale.

23. The truth is that veterans & their families have gone through hell. Afghans & their families are now living through the hell of unbridled Taliban repression. The only way to alleviate the suffering of both groups, well over 40 million souls, is by confronting Pakistan.

24. Yet Biden does not mention Pakistan even once. Imagine a US president explaining the Vietnam or Korean wars without mentioning North Vietnam or the DPRK. Or a US president doing a deal with Vichy France without raising Nazi Germany. Yet this is what Trump & Biden have done.

25. The failure of successive US presidents to confront Pakistan's role will be explained one day. Painful lessons will be learned. But today's imperative is to acknowledge the Taliban have seized power only thanks to a long-planned invasion by Pakistan's military.

26. Veterans need our support on all levels, including all-important mental health treatment. But they are also looking to put their sacrifice into larger perspective -- to understand what it means, why we failed in Afghanistan, & what success might yet look like.

27. Biden's speech does none of this. By claiming a war has ended when terrorist groups now regrouping in Afghanistan intend to target the US & other democracies, he is misleading us all in egregious ways. Once again, this is raw isolationism, turning its back on the real world.

28. Biden's uniquely vexed take on Afghanistan need not constrain anyone. In the US spectrum, he is an outlier on this issue; reality will quickly belie his claims. In the meantime, cooler heads should prevail, soberly assess Pakistan's role, & mobilize the right response.