Almost 20 years after it began, America’s “Forever War” in Afghanistan is finally coming to an end. It comes after former President Donald Trump began peace talks late into his term and President Joe Biden affirmed that decision to pull U.S. troops out by Sept. 11. Yet, that decision to pull out left Afghanistan in. a state of uncertainty. In just two weeks, the Taliban swept into power across much of the country and took over the capital, Kabul, rendering America’s 20-year-long war effort an utter waste with the surrender of the Afghan National Security Forces, resulting in the “Afghanistan collapse.”
The Afghanistan war, which began after the 9/11 attacks, has killed over 2,400 U.S. servicemembers, wounded 20,000 more, and cost in excess of $2 trillion.
America’s War in Afghanistan has never been popular. Though it has never drawn as much public outcry as the Vietnam War did in the 1970s — notably due to the lack of a mandatory draft — the war has seen decreasing support ever since it began. Ever since 2001, Gallup polling data has shown Americans’ support for sending troops into Afghanistan decreasing, and the country is now almost evenly divided over the issue. Democrats and independents are more likely to think the war was a mistake (58 and 54 percent respectively thought it was a mistake), while only 29 percent of Republicans thought the same way.
In many recent polls, a large percentage of people have answered “not sure” when asked whether or not the war was a mistake.
This is not a surprise: the U.S. military is now fully a volunteer force, meaning that no one was forced against their will to go fight in Afghanistan — one could argue they signed up for this. Wars are also no longer financed primarily by tax increases — rather, they are now financed by adding to the national debt. This has meant that people have not cared particularly much about the Afghanistan war as it hardly impacted most people directly.
In fact, the war’s primary goal — to stomp out the Taliban and remove Afghanistan from being a safe place for terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda — has increasingly been forgotten by many people.
However, in recent days, as the U.S. increased its push to remove its troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban has made a comeback, snatching almost all of Afghanistan’s major urban centers in less than two weeks. Kabul was the last major city to fall to the Taliban, on Aug. 15. Current U.S. and NATO efforts in Afghanistan have been focused on evacuating foreign nationals and Afghans who assisted NATO forces during the war.
As the Taliban took over Kabul, desperate Afghans trying to flee Taliban rule — which has had a poor human rights record when they were last in power between 1996 and 2001, especially toward women — rushed to the airport, trying to get on a plane out of the country. U.S. and British forces rushed to evacuate their embassies and citizens, deploying thousands of troops to the airport to assist with evacuations. Some military planes took in hundreds of Afghan refugees. Other Afghans were not so lucky, though, as they fell to their deaths when they tried to cling onto planes taking off from the airport.
What was shocking to many was the speed at which Afghan cities fell to the Taliban and the videos of Afghan civilians fleeing to the airport. U.S. officials had previously estimated it would take at least a few weeks before Kabul would collapse before that number was drastically cut to about a week. And far before that, most weren’t expecting the U.S.-trained Afghan National Army to fall that quickly.
The current exit strategy has left many wondering if the last 20 years were in vain, as Taliban fighters posed for selfies with U.S. equipment. Considering the war has now spanned four presidencies — George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and now Joe Biden — it’s hard to put all the blame squarely on Biden, but the move to exit in this fashion has definitely drawn questions.
It is important to note, however, that withdrawing from Afghanistan was extremely popular among Americans until two weeks ago. In polls conducted all throughout July, large majorities of Americans supported withdrawing U.S. forces from Afhganistan.
Support for withdrawal has remained consistently high. When the Trump administration finalized a deal with the Taliban to withdraw in 2020, it was hailed by many as a good decision, and lots of GOP members agreed as such. That is, until last week, when Republicans tried to remove evidence that they once supported the withdrawal after things went sour. The GOP then tried to shift the blame onto Biden, blasting him for withdrawing poorly and lacking a plan.
But it isn’t easy to see how much more different things could have played out. Taliban control has been fairly imminent for a while now, and if the U.S. had started evacuations earlier, it would have caused a similar mass stampede at the airport, just like what is going on now. This is especially true if embassies were evacuated — it would definitely send Afghans the message that something is about to go wrong.
On the whole, though, support is likely to get far more polarized along party lines. New polls have shown Democratic approval for withdrawing remaining fairly stagnant, while Republican support for withdrawing plummeted. This is despite many Republicans previously supporting publicly withdrawing from Afghanistan.
And many takes on how the withdrawal directly could have major political impacts on Biden’s presidency may be unfounded. Although Biden’s approval rating did dip slightly, it is common for presidents to see their approval dip into the term. Foreign policy is also usually not too important to most American voters. This is especially true considering the little attention most have paid to the war in Afghanistan. The media spotlight on Afghanistan is also likely to fade quickly, and by the time the midterms come around, many people are likely to have forgotten about it.
A major rift has opened within the Republican Party, though, and that is the issue of accepting Afghan refugees. The GOP has taken a marked turn against immigration in recent years, but the issue of Afghanistan is throwing a wrench into that. There has been internal debate over whether to allow Afghans, especially those who aided the U.S. military, to settle in the United States.
For example, many veterans and servicemen are likely to vote Republican. But they are also highly likely to support allowing Afghan interpreters and other Afghans to resettling in the United States. Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, for instance, is extremely pro-Trump and anti-intervensionist, but still voted for the ALLIES Act, which expanded special visas for Afghans who aided U.S. operation in Afghanistan, after numerous constituents called him about Afghans who helped personally save their lives while serving there.
Some Republican governors of ruby-red states, such as Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah, Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, and Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa, have written open letters and statements on social media inviting Afghans to live in their states. Cox, for instance, penned an open letter to the White House, saying that the state’s long history of welcoming refugees and being founded by Mormons as a bastion for religious freedom made the state “eager to continue that practice” with Afghan refugees. Many governors said that they believed it was imperative to assist Afghan refugees and would welcome them into their states.
On the other hand, other Republicans who lean further to the right were markedly against accepting Afghans. Steve Cortes, a former Trump adviser, blasted “uniparty globalists who dominated the Bush & Obama administrations” for causing the crisis and asked his followers on Twitter to “Raise your hand if you want this plane landing in your town?” after posting a picture of refugees leaving Afghanistan on a plane.
Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., said on Twitter that “The Biden admin’s plan to bring planeloads [of Afghan refugees] into the US now and ask questions later is reckless and irresponsible.”
The issue is sure to reveberate in the Republican primaries in 2022 and possibly even beyond. Republican J.D. Vance, a candidate for Ohio’s Senate race, which is expected to be moderately competitive, said he would “like to hear zero about Afghan refugees until we get every single American out first.”