Like Biden, world leaders face blowback from Afghan debacle

President Biden isn’t the only world leader facing blowback from the stunning collapse of the government in Afghanistan and the desperate struggle to evacuate stranded citizens as the Taliban consolidate control in Kabul.

Leaders in other NATO countries and major non-NATO allies — many of whom have been with the U.S. virtually since the beginning of the 20-year war — are facing tough questioning at home over why they badly misread the security situation and the American commitment to a long-term military mission.

The recriminations and doubts are especially pointed in two major allies — Britain and Germany. The U.K. was the second-largest contributor of troops to the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan, losing over 450 troops and military personnel. Germany reported 59 combat deaths, but the Afghan deployment was the largest overseas military mission for Berlin since World War II. Germany took a leading role in training the Afghan security forces who melted away in the face of the Taliban offensive.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced sharp questioning in Parliament on Wednesday over his handling of the Afghan mission, much of it coming from his own Conservative Party predecessor.

Former Prime Minister Theresa May said Mr. Johnson was blindsided by the weaknesses of the Kabul government and failed to appreciate the consequences of Mr. Biden’s order to remove all American troops by Aug. 31, no matter what the situation on the ground.

“Was our intelligence really so poor? Was our understanding of the Afghan government so weak?” Mrs. May asked during a general debate in the House of Commons. “Was our knowledge of the position on the ground so inadequate? … Or did we feel we just had to follow the United States and hope that on a wing and a prayer it’d be all right on the night?”

Labor Party opposition leader Keir Starmer also slammed the performance of the British government, saying it had been a “disastrous week” for the country, made worse by the “appalling response” of the Johnson government.

Mr. Johnson, frequently interrupted during the debate, appeared to put much of the blame on Mr. Biden’s unilateral decision this spring to set a Sept. 11 hard deadline for the removal of all U.S. troops, a move soon followed by the troops of NATO and allied forces operating in the country.

 “The West could not continue this U.S.-led mission — a mission conceived and executed in support and defense of America — without American logistics, without U.S. airpower and without American might.”

Mr. Biden’s once-high stock with European allies, backed by promises of cooperation and respect following the rocky years of the Trump administration, appear certain to take a hit in the wake of the Afghan withdrawal. Although their contingents are smaller, government leaders around the world are scrambling to organize evacuation missions in Kabul for their troops and the Afghans who worked with them and now face retaliation from the Taliban.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has avoided direct criticism of Mr. Biden but has expressed anger at the chaos in Kabul and has privately complained about Washington’s mishandling of the diplomacy and the logistics of the withdrawal, according to German press reports.

“We have all, and I also take responsibility for this, misjudged the situation,” Ms. Merkel told the German news outlet Deutsche Welle. “We had a wrong assessment of the situation, and that is not just a wrong German assessment, but it is widespread.”

U.S. snap polls have shows Mr. Biden’s approval rating has nosedived with the bad news out of Kabul, and analysts expect the Afghan crisis will bring second thoughts to Europeans as well.

“Naturally this has damaged American credibility, along with that of the intelligence services and of the military,” Ruediger Lentz, the former head of the Aspen Institute in Berlin, told Politico Europe. “One can only hope that the damage to America’s foreign policy leadership can be quickly contained.”

The Taliban victory also threatens to add new fuel to another politically perilous issue for foreign leaders: immigration. Many are already bracing for the prospect that a new flood of Afghan refugees will be seeking, legally or illegally, a new home.

Some countries — Britain, Canada, North Macedonia and Uganda, among them — have already said they are ready to take in some refugees on an emergency basis. But others, including Switzerland and Austria, already laid down markers against accepting significant numbers.
Turkey, which houses one of the world’s largest refugee populations from the Syrian civil war and other regional crises, was speeding up the construction of a border wall to prevent large numbers of Afghan refugees arriving through Iran.

The Afghan collapse has also meant uncomfortable moments for countries dependent on the U.S. military umbrella for security.

The U.S. military defeat has sharpened a debate in South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s ruling party for greater military control over joint U.S.-South Korean forces in the event of a shooting war with North Korea.

And Ukraine, which relies heavily on American arms and security guarantees in its struggles with its giant Russian neighbor, has been watching the events in Kabul with growing alarm, according to Alyona Getmanchuk, director of the Kyiv-based New Europe Center.

“Ukraine’s relationship with America is far removed from the high levels of dependency that marked the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan,” she wrote in an analysis this week for the Atlantic Council. “Even so, the nature of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan has set off alarm bells throughout Ukraine and served as a wake-up call for anyone who still believes that continued Western support can be relied upon indefinitely.”