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Biden Details U.S. Evacuation Efforts in Afghanistan
President Biden said that the United States had evacuated an “extraordinary number of people” from Kabul, but that his Aug. 31 deadline for removing all American troops from Afghanistan might be extended.
“We have moved thousands of people each day via U.S. military aircraft and civilian charter flights. In a little over 30 hours this weekend, we’ve evacuated an extraordinary number of people. As of this morning, we have evacuated nearly 28,000 people, since August the 14th, on both U.S. and coalition aircraft, including civilian charters, bringing the total number of people we’ve evacuated since July to approximately 33,000 persons. We’re bringing our citizens, NATO allies, Afghanis who have helped us in the war effort. But we have a long way to go, and a lot could still go wrong. But to move out 30,000 people in just over a week, that’s a great testament to the men and women on the ground in Kabul and our armed services. As this effort unfolds, I want to be clear about three things. One: Planes taking off from Kabul are not flying directly to United States. They’re landing at U.S. military bases in transit centers around the world. No. 2: At these sites where they’re landing, we are conducting thorough scrutiny, security screening, for everyone who is not a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident. Anyone arriving in the United States will have undergone a background check. No. 3: Once screened and cleared, we will welcome these Afghans who helped us in the war effort over the last 20 years to their new home in the United States of America.” Reporter: “We’re nine days away from the Aug. 31 deadline. Will you extend the deadline?” “Our hope is we will not have to extend, but there are going to be discussions, I suspect, depending on how far along we are in the process.
President Biden said that the United States had evacuated an “extraordinary number of people” from Kabul, but that his Aug. 31 deadline for removing all American troops from Afghanistan might be extended.CreditCredit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Biden said on Sunday that his administration might extend his Aug. 31 deadline for removing all American troops from Afghanistan, and he pledged that all evacuated Afghan allies will be given a home in the United States after they are screened and vetted at bases in other countries.
“We will welcome these Afghans who have helped us in the war effort over the last 20 years to their new home in the United States of America,” Mr. Biden said on Sunday afternoon in remarks from the Roosevelt Room at the White House. “Because that’s who we are. That’s what America is.”
The military has evacuated 28,000 people since Aug. 14 from the chaotic Afghan capital in the week since the Taliban seized control of the country, Mr. Biden said, and he suggested that the military had expanded the secure perimeter around the airport. He also said military officials would be looking at whether to stay in the country beyond Aug. 31 to complete evacuations.
“Our hope is we will not have to extend, but there are going to be discussions, I suspect, on how far along we are in the process,” the president said.
The president’s remarks came as he remained at the White House instead of spending a planned weekend at his home in Wilmington, Del., amid continuing chaos at the airport in Kabul and a globe-spanning effort by the U.S. military and diplomats to ferry Americans and Afghan allies to safety.
The president said that the Taliban appeared to be abiding by a promise to grant Americans and others safe passage to the airport, an agreement negotiated over the last days even as the group set up armed checkpoints throughout the city they now control.
“So far, they have, by and large, followed through on what they said in terms of allowing Americans to pass through and the like,” Mr. Biden said.
He appeared to refer to numerous reports of people who have said they were stopped by the Taliban, adding: “I’m sure they don’t control all of their forces. It’s a ragtag force. And so we’ll see. We’ll see whether or not what they say turns out to be true.”
Asked whether the U.S. military might expand the secure perimeter around the airport to help more people in the city get safe passage, Mr. Biden did not say yes or no, speaking instead of the military’s “tactical changes” to increase security around the airport.
“We have constantly — how can I say it? — increased rational access to the airport, where more folks can get there more safely,” he said. “It’s still a dangerous operation, but I don’t want to go into the detail of how we’re doing that.”
He also hinted that the military was working on ways to bring Americans to the airport who have not been able to get there, saying: “We are executing a plan to move groups of these Americans to safety and to safely and effectively move them to the airport compound. For security reasons, I’m not going to go into the details of what these plans entail.”
Earlier on Sunday, Mr. Biden met with his national security team on what the White House called an “operational update” on the situation in Afghanistan. The administration on Sunday ordered American airlines to provide the use of airplanes and crews to help in that effort, activating the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, which was created in 1952 during the Berlin Air Lift.
But the evacuation from Afghanistan continued to be chaotic in the country’s capital, which was seized by the Taliban last week. Thousands of Afghans seeking to escape the new regime continued to rush to the airport amid violence and several deaths.
Mr. Biden acknowledged the situation but focused his brief remarks on what he said was an accelerating success in flying people out of Kabul and to safety.
“All together, we lifted approximately 11,000 people out of a couple in less than 36 hours,” he said. “It’s an incredible operation.”
The president has come under intense criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and from leaders around the world for the execution of the withdrawal, which left governments scrambling to get their citizens out of Kabul when the Taliban swept in.
Critics have also accused Mr. Biden of not expressing enough empathy for the situation at the airport, where several people have died amid huge crowds. In his remarks on Sunday, the president was more emotional than he has been in recent days.
“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “We see it. We feel it. You can’t look at and not feel it. Nothing about this effort is easy.”
An American Airlines plane in Arlington, Va., on Friday. The carrier is to provide three planes to aid the rescue effort.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has ordered six commercial airlines to provide passenger jets to help with the growing U.S. military operation evacuating Americans and Afghan allies from Kabul, the Afghan capital, the Pentagon said on Sunday.
Mr. Austin activated Stage 1 of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, created in 1952 after the Berlin airlift, to provide 18 airliners to help ferry passengers arriving at bases in the Middle East from Afghanistan, John F. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement.
The current activation is for 18 planes: four from United Airlines; three each from American Airlines, Atlas Air, Delta Air Lines and Omni Air; and two from Hawaiian Airlines.
The Pentagon does not anticipate a major impact to commercial flights, Mr. Kirby said.
Capt. John Perkins, a spokesman for the military’s Transportation Command, said on Sunday that the commercial airliners would begin service on Monday or Tuesday and that they would fly evacuees both from the Middle East to Europe and from Europe to the United States.
Captain Perkins said in a telephone interview that the military had requested wide-bodied, long-haul aircraft capable of carrying several hundred passengers. He said that discussions started with the airlines last week and that some carriers had volunteered planes for the evacuation. But, he added, the demand was great enough for Mr. Austin to order more airlines to honor their obligations under the reserve fleet program.
Civilian planes would not fly into or out of Kabul, where a rapidly deteriorating security situation has hampered evacuation flights. Instead, commercial airline pilots and crews would help transport thousands of Afghans who are arriving at U.S. bases in Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
The commercial airlines would ease the burden on those bases, which are filling up rapidly as the Biden administration rushes to increase the number of flights for thousands of Afghans fearing reprisals from Taliban fighters.
From the bases in the Middle East, the airliners would augment military flights carrying Afghans to Germany, Italy, Spain and other stops in Europe, and then ultimately to the United States for many of the Afghans, officials said.
Scott Kirby, the chief executive of United Airlines, said on social media, “As a global airline and flag carrier for our country, we embrace the responsibility to quickly respond to international challenges like this one.”
“It’s a duty we take with the utmost care and coordination,” he added.
The airline noted that four of its Boeing 777 planes, which seat as many as 350 people, had been activated.
American Airlines said in a statement that it was ready to deploy three aircraft starting Monday and that it would work to minimize the impact on customers.
“The images from Afghanistan are heartbreaking” the statement said. “The airline is proud and grateful of our pilots and flight attendants, who will be operating these trips to be a part of this lifesaving effort.”
This is just the third time that the reserve air fleet has been used. The first was during the Persian Gulf war (from August 1990 to May 1991). The second was during the Iraq war (from February 2002 to June 2003).
For the evacuation mission, one of the largest the Pentagon has ever conducted, the military has expanded beyond its fleet of C-17s, the cargo plane of choice in hostile environments, to include giant C-5s and KC-10s, a refueling plane that can be configured to carry passengers.
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The situation at Kabul’s international airport deteriorated further as thousands of people tried to flee the Taliban. The British Ministry of Defense, which has troops at the airport, said seven Afghan civilians had died in the crowds.CreditCredit…Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
As the United States scrambled Sunday to control the mayhem at the Kabul airport, the situation was growing increasingly dire for the thousands of desperate Afghans trying to flee the Taliban, with surging crowds turning deadly and the potential threat of attacks.
The British Defense Ministry, which has troops at the airport, said on Sunday that seven Afghan civilians had died in the crowds, where people have been trampled to death, including a toddler. “Conditions on the ground remain extremely challenging,” the ministry said, offering no details about the deaths.
The day before, the United States and Germany warned their citizens in Afghanistan to avoid the airport. American officials cited the possibility of another threat: an attack by the Taliban’s Islamic State rivals.
Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, “The threat is real.”
“It is acute. It is persistent. And it is something that we are focused on with every tool in our arsenal,” he added.
With the risks rising, military commanders at the airport had been “metering” the flow of Americans, Afghan allies and other foreigners through the gates, according to Maj. Gen. William Taylor of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.
Mr. Biden said on Sunday he is considering extending evacuations beyond an Aug. 31 deadline and promised every evacuated Afghan ally a home in the United States.
The situation at the airport has grown increasingly dangerous in recent days, sometimes with lethal consequences.
In formal settings elsewhere in Kabul, the Taliban have been in talks about forming a government. One of their leaders, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, arrived in Kabul to begin discussions with former President Hamid Karzai and other politicians, whose participation in any government could help lend it legitimacy overseas.
But the Taliban face an uphill struggle to govern a war-weary nation with hollowed-out ministries and a lack of financial resources. Many Afghans are far from persuaded that the group’s repressive past, in which it deprived women of basic rights and encouraged floggings, amputations and mass executions, is truly behind it.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., speaking during a hearing in July on Capitol Hill in Washington.Credit…Pool photo by Jim Bourg
Two prominent Republicans on Sunday condemned their colleagues for objecting to bringing Afghan refugees to the United States. One called out efforts to stoke fear as “evil.”
As the chaotic situation on the ground in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, some Republican lawmakers have questioned whether the nation should welcome thousands of Afghans who assisted American forces.
Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, who has emerged as a vocal critic of his own party and was one of 10 Republicans to vote to impeach former President Donald J. Trump in January, derided such comments on Sunday, calling them a cynical appeal to his party’s base.
“If anyone wants to go out and fear monger,” Mr. Kinzinger said, “you are either evil in your heart yourself or you’re a charlatan who is only interested in winning re-election.”
On Fox News Sunday, Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, said that Americans opposed to welcoming Afghans who aided the military into the country needed to understand that “we’re talking about heroes.”
“When you fought on behalf of Americans to protect our people, you’re welcome in my neighborhood,” Mr. Sasse said.
Some of their colleagues have pointedly disagreed. Representative Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin, who represents a district neighboring Fort McCoy, a military installation where Afghan refugees are expected to arrive, objected to the plan, saying that “Afghanistan is a dangerous country that is home to many dangerous people.”
“The Biden administration’s plan to bring planeloads into the U.S. now and ask questions later is reckless and irresponsible,” Mr. Tiffany wrote on Twitter last week.
Reports on the ground indicate that the Taliban are hunting Afghans allied with the United States, and threatening to arrest or punish family members if they cannot find the people they are seeking.
Afghan security officials standing guard outside the U.N. office in Herat after it was attacked in July.Credit…Jalil Rezayee/EPA, via Shutterstock
Fears are growing over the safety of roughly 3,400 Afghan U.N. staff members in Afghanistan, especially the women, with some expressing worry that the Taliban and its extremist allies will target them simply because of their foreign affiliation.
Despite the public assurances of Taliban leaders that the U.N. and other international humanitarian groups in Afghanistan can work unimpeded, accounts of threats, coercion and harassment have increased. Some Afghan staff members are in hiding and have expressed fear they could be killed.
A group of U.N. staff unions and associations launched an online petition in recent days requesting that António Guterres, the secretary-general, “take all necessary measures, including evacuation or relocation, in order to ensure the safety and security of all staff, national or international.”
The petition says that the workers’ “lives are now in danger” because of their work for the U.N. As of Sunday, more than 1,000 signatures were attached.
Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for Mr. Guterres, said in an emailed statement Sunday night that “we are acutely aware of the great stress and genuine fears of some staff, particularly those of national colleagues.” The statement said “extensive security measures are in place to safeguard colleagues” and that “emergency protocols and steps” had been taken to protect them and their dependents in Afghanistan, including relocation away from conflict zones.
The U.N. has rejected what critics call its preferential treatment of non-Afghan staff, a majority of them now safely outside of Afghanistan. U.N. officials have said that unlike countries, the U.N. has no power to issue travel visas — a distinction that Mr. Dujarric alluded to in his statement. “We need member states to offer immediate help,” he said. “The U.N. urges all countries to be willing to receive Afghans and to refrain from deportations.”
In a further sign of growing anxiety among Afghan U.N. staff members, female officials from at least four U.N. agencies have written a joint letter imploring the Canadian government to expand the scope of special visas it has announced for 20,000 vulnerable women in Afghanistan.
“There is no doubt that we, as U.N. females, are also extremely vulnerable and are under high risk of danger and violence,” read a copy of the letter, seen by The New York Times. “We are in danger from the Taliban side because these are the women who have worked with international partners and colleagues and are considered spies and apostates.”
The letter asked Canada for visas specifically for female U.N. staff.
These women, the letter stated, are equally vulnerable to threats from “various terrorist groups active in the country who will not spare a single opportunity to attack the U.N. staff, particularly females,” if foreign troops withdraw as scheduled on Aug. 31.
Officials at Global Affairs Canada, the country’s foreign ministry, referred a request for comment on the letter to a different ministry, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, which did not immediately respond.
The U.N. has an extensive network of operations inside Afghanistan, where a majority of the population urgently needed humanitarian aid well before the Taliban’s seizure of power.
Threats to the U.N. grew last month when its compound in the western city of Herat was attacked. Last week, the organization moved many of the 350 non-Afghan staff in the country to what it described as a temporary relocation in Almaty, Kazakhstan. About 100 of them are believed to be still in Afghanistan.
The fast-moving developments in the Afghanistan crisis have left the U.N. in a basic quandary. Mr. Guterres and his aides have repeatedly stressed that the organization remains committed to the humanitarian needs in the country and will maintain a presence there. But it is difficult to answer those needs if its staff members are threatened.
The quandary was underscored on Sunday when Unicef and the World Health Organization said the chaos in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power a week ago had worsened the humanitarian crisis.
“The abilities to respond to those needs are rapidly declining,” the two U.N. agencies said in a statement. They called for “immediate and unimpeded access to deliver medicines and other lifesaving supplies to millions of people in need of aid, including 300,000 people displaced in the last two months alone.”
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaking during a television interview on Sunday outside the White House in Washington.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
As U.S. troops finalized a withdrawal from Afghanistan, national security officials acknowledged concerns that the resulting military vacuum could create a new and ongoing terrorism threat.
Addressing the situation on Sunday, Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, said the threat of ISIS terrorists regaining a foothold in Afghanistan was of growing concern to security experts.
“The threat is real,” he said. “It is acute. It is persistent. And it is something that we are focused on with every tool in our arsenal.”
Mr. Sullivan said the administration continued to discuss with Taliban commanders in charge of security, and that those talks focused on providing safe passage to the airport.
“And if that passage is disrupted or operations are interfered with, the United States will deliver a swift and forceful response,” he said.
Mr. Sullivan said troops would continue to oversee counterterrorism efforts in spite of their diminished ground presence, pushing back against the notion that the withdrawal posed a threat to national security.
“Our commanders on the ground have a wide variety of capabilities that they are using to defend the airfield against a potential terrorist attack,” he said. “We are working hard with our intelligence community to try to isolate and determine where an attack might come from.”
On Saturday, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul warned Americans to stay away from the airport because of “potential security threats outside the gates,” in a sign of growing volatility at the choke point for thousands of Afghans desperate to escape the country’s new Taliban rulers.
A gathering of the Group of 7 leaders in Cornwall, England, in June. Britain holds the group presidency this year.Credit…Pool photo by Leon Neal
Leaders of the Group of 7 nations will hold a virtual meeting on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, which holds the group presidency this year, wrote on Twitter on Sunday, “It is vital that the international community works together to ensure safe evacuations, prevent a humanitarian crisis and support the Afghan people to secure the gains of the last 20 years.”
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that the Group of 7’s leaders would “discuss continuing our close coordination on Afghanistan policy and evacuating our citizens, the brave Afghans who stood with us over the last two decades and other vulnerable Afghans.”
In addition, she said the leaders would talk about “humanitarian assistance and support for Afghan refugees.”
President Biden and Mr. Johnson spoke on Tuesday about Afghanistan, and they agreed to hold a virtual meeting of the Group of 7 leaders this coming week, according to a summary of their call released by the White House. Mr. Biden also spoke in the past week to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy.
One topic that will most likely be discussed is the final destination for thousands of Afghans who have fled the Taliban and need new homes.
Mr. Macron said on Monday that the European Union should create a “robust response” to any new influx of migrants from Afghanistan, reflecting a hardened view on the continent about a volatile political issue.
“Europe cannot alone assume the consequences” of the Taliban takeover, he said.
A C-17 military transport plane landing at the international airport in Kabul on Sunday.Credit…Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
At the center of the scramble to airlift American citizens out of Afghanistan after its fall to the Taliban is a basic question: How many Americans are waiting to be evacuated?
It is a question the Biden administration has been unable to answer.
“We cannot give you a precise number,” Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
Mr. Sullivan said the United States had been in touch with “a few thousand Americans” and was working on making arrangements to get them out of the country. In another interview, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he estimated that “roughly a few thousand” Americans were trying to leave Afghanistan.
American officials had estimated on Tuesday that 10,000 to 15,000 U.S. citizens were in Afghanistan. Maj. Gen. William Taylor of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff said on Saturday that about 2,500 Americans had been evacuated since Aug. 14, the day before the Taliban took Kabul, the Afghan capital.
The evacuation of U.S. citizens is one piece of the broader airlift effort that is underway in Kabul, with thousands of Afghans also being flown out of the country. Mr. Biden said on Sunday that nearly 28,000 people, in total, had been evacuated on military and other flights since Aug. 14.
Complicating matters for the Biden administration is a lack of clarity about how many Americans were in Afghanistan when the Taliban seized control of the country.
When American citizens come to Afghanistan, they are asked to register with the U.S. Embassy, Mr. Sullivan said. Some register but then leave the country without notifying the embassy. Others never register to begin with.
“We have been working for the past few days to get fidelity on as precise a count as possible,” Mr. Sullivan said in the NBC interview. “We have reached out to thousands of Americans by phone, email, text. And we are working on plans to, as we get in touch with people, give them direction for the best and most safe and most effective way for them to get into the airport.”
The Panjshir Valley in 2020. A group of former Afghan government leaders are holding out in the Panjshir Valley, which was a bastion of resistance against the Taliban in the 1990s civil war.Credit…Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan — The Taliban have asked Russia to convey an offer to negotiate with a group of Afghan leaders holding out against militants in the rugged Panjshir Valley in northern Afghanistan, according to the Russian ambassador in Kabul.
The overture to Moscow raises the prospect of a Russian role in any settlement with the holdouts, who have gathered in a place that successfully resisted the Taliban throughout the group’s rule in Afghanistan from 1996 through 2001.
Their prospects today are much less certain. But the group is trying to rally a military force, and it claims to be a continuation of the U.S.-backed government that collapsed in the capital.
Taliban leaders visited the Russian embassy in Kabul, which remains open, with a request to pass an offer of negotiation to the group, the Russian ambassador, Dmitri Zhirnov, told a Russian television interviewer on Saturday.
“They asked that Russia convey to the leaders and the residents of Panjshir the following: Right now, the Taliban have not made any attempts to enter the Panjshir with force,” Mr. Zhirnov said. “The group is counting on a peaceful path out of the situation, for example by reaching a political agreement.”
Mr. Zhirnov alluded in his comments to the likely Russian interest in any settlement, which is preventing a Taliban expansion into Central Asia, where countries confronted Islamic insurgencies in the 1990s.
“I don’t believe they will go into” Central Asia, Mr. Zhirnov said of the Taliban after the meeting Saturday in Kabul with Taliban leaders. “They have too much business at home.”
The Panjshir Valley was a bastion of resistance against the Taliban when the militants controlled the capital and the country’s south in the 1990s. Yet parallels with this earlier fight are limited and even Afghans sympathetic to the effort expressed deep doubts about its prospects. Former Afghan officials put the number of fighters holed up in the Panjshir at 2,000 to 2,500 men.
Unlike 20 years ago, the resistance leaders do not control territory tying the valley with a supply line into Central Asian countries to the north, such as Tajikistan, which aided their cause during Afghanistan’s civil war more than twenty years ago. Today Russia, the pre-eminent security power in Central Asia, has instead been cultivating ties with the Taliban.
The group in Panjshir is not the only one trying to rally a resistance. Former Afghan officials said that remnants of the Afghan security forces had pushed back the Taliban in three small districts in the north. That result could not be independently confirmed. But it did raise the possibility that the Taliban had not yet fully sewn up the country — an objective that eluded the group throughout its five-year rule of Afghanistan.
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Tony Blair Criticizes U.S. Exit From Afghanistan
Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who led the U.K. into Afghanistan, said the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country poses a threat to the security of Western nations, and resulted in a loss for the Afghan people, as the Taliban reclaimed power.
I support a lot of what President Biden has done since becoming president, I mean, I have a great respect and admiration for him as a person. And I understand he inherited this agreement of February 2020 20, which which was very difficult. And I also understand, if you’re a political leader, you’re under political pressure. People people want the engagement to end. But we’ve got to realize we were in a situation where our engagement was dramatically different from where it was 10 years ago, never mind 20 years ago, and where we could have managed the situation. And the problem with what’s happened now and this is my worry, is it’s not just about the Afghan people and our obligation to them. And obviously, you know, you feel, I mean, distressed when you see when you see people realizing what they’re going to lose as a result of the Taliban coming back into power. But it’s not just about the Afghan people. It’s about us and our security, because you’ve now got this group back in charge of Afghanistan. They will give. Protection and succour to al-Qaeda. You’ve got ISIS already in the country trying to operate at the same time. You know, you look around the world. And the only people really cheering this decision are the people hostile to Western interests.
Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who led the U.K. into Afghanistan, said the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country poses a threat to the security of Western nations, and resulted in a loss for the Afghan people, as the Taliban reclaimed power.CreditCredit…Toby Melville/Reuters
Tony Blair, the former prime minister of Britain, on Saturday criticized the withdrawal from Afghanistan, calling it a hasty move made “in obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending ‘the forever wars.’”
As prime minister, Mr. Blair sent British troops into both Afghanistan and Iraq, backing President George W. Bush’s decision to invade both countries after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Those conflicts have helped to comprise Mr. Blair’s legacy, particularly the war in Iraq, which a British investigation later found was promoted with intelligence that falsely overstated the threats posed by Saddam Hussein’s government.
In his statement on Saturday, Mr. Blair acknowledged unspecified mistakes in the 20-year military involvement in Afghanistan, some of them serious. But he said that the chaotic retreat would undermine faith in the West and sacrifice fragile improvements in the lives of Afghans.
“And for anyone who disputes that, read the heartbreaking laments from every section of Afghan society as to what they fear will now be lost,” Mr. Blair wrote. “Gains in living standards, education particularly of girls, gains in freedom. Not nearly what we hoped or wanted. But not nothing. Something worth defending, worth protecting.”
Mr. Blair did not mention President Biden by name in his statement. But he argued that leaving Afghanistan raised questions about whether the West had lost its strategic will and that it had resulted in a humiliation that would be cheered on by jihadist groups and exploited by China, Iran and Russia.
The Taliban should be seen as part of a broader ideology of what he called “Radical Islam” that should continue to concern the West, Mr. Blair argued, even if some believe that Afghanistan itself is of little geopolitical importance.
“If we did define it as a strategic challenge, and saw it in whole and not as parts, we would never have taken the decision to pull out of Afghanistan,” he wrote.
He called on the West to exert pressure on the Taliban, including potential incentives as well as sanctions, to protect Afghan civilians.
“This is urgent,” he wrote. “The disarray of the past weeks needs to be replaced by something resembling coherence, and with a plan that is credible and realistic. But then we must answer that overarching question. What are our strategic interests and are we prepared any longer to commit to upholding them?”
Vice President Kamala Harris was greeted by Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan of Singapore as she arrived in the country on Sunday.Credit…Caroline Chia/Reuters
Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday began a trip to Southeast Asia, where her attempts to bolster American relationships are likely to be shadowed by the messy and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Ms. Harris arrived on Sunday in Singapore, where she planned to meet with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and other officials before heading to Vietnam on Tuesday. The White House said last month that the vice president’s visits to the two countries would focus on regional security, the global response to the pandemic, climate change and economic cooperation.
The Biden administration has made Asia a centerpiece of its foreign policy, hoping to build stronger ties there to counter an increasingly assertive China. But Ms. Harris’s senior aides have already faced questions about whether the haphazard withdrawal in Afghanistan could undermine the administration’s efforts to bolster partnerships in the South China Sea.
“We couldn’t have a higher priority right now, a particularly high priority to make sure we safely evacuate American citizens, Afghans who worked with us,” Ms. Harris said on Friday before boarding Air Force Two in the United States. “It’s a big area of focus for me in the past days and weeks and it will continue to be.”
For Ms. Harris, the trip’s optics will be especially fraught in Vietnam, where the past week’s images of desperate Afghans trying to flee Kabul’s airport have recalled America’s ignominious exit from South Vietnam in 1975.
Ms. Harris is expected to offer reassurances that the United States remains committed to the region even as Beijing has cultivated countries there with visits, loans and coronavirus vaccines. China is Southeast Asia’s most important trading partner, and senior Chinese officials, including Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader, have traveled to the region at least five times since January of last year.
The economic interdependence between Southeast Asian countries and Beijing has forced them to strike a balance between China and the United States, wary of China’s ambitions but mindful of its economic value, while looking toward the United States as a counterweight.
Concerns about China’s exploiting the situation in Afghanistan have been fanned in recent days as Beijing painted the mayhem as a failure of American political and military might. “The last dusk of empire,” China’s official news agency called it.
But the Taliban takeover also poses geopolitical and security challenges for Beijing. China shares a short, remote border with Afghanistan, which, under Taliban rule in the 1990s, served as a haven for Uyghur extremists from the western Chinese region of Xinjiang.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.
Taliban fighters in Kabul on Monday. The Taliban arose in the early 1990s amid the turmoil that followed the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989.Credit…Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
Here is a look at the origin of the Taliban; how they managed to take over Afghanistan not once, but twice; what they did when they first took control — and what that might reveal about their plans for this time.
When did the Taliban first emerge?
The Taliban arose in the early 1990s amid the turmoil that followed the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989.
The Soviets were defeated by Islamic fighters known as the mujahedeen, a patchwork of insurgent factions. The country fell into warlordism, and a brutal civil war.
Against this backdrop, the Taliban, with their promise to put Islamic values first and to battle the corruption that drove the warlords’ fighting, quickly attracted a following. Over years of intense fighting, they took over most of the country.
Why did the U.S. invade Afghanistan?
When they were in power, the Taliban made Afghanistan a safe harbor for Osama bin Laden, a Saudi Arabia-born former mujahedeen fighter, while he built up a terrorist group with global designs: Al Qaeda.
On Sept 11, 2001, the group struck a blow that rattled the world, toppling the World Trade Center towers in New York and damaging the Pentagon in Washington. Thousands were killed.
President George W. Bush demanded that the Taliban hand over Al Qaeda and Bin Laden. When the Taliban balked, the United States invaded.
What will the Taliban do next?
The early days of Taliban control have seemed restrained in some places. But enough reports of brutality and intimidation have surfaced to send waves of refugees to the Kabul airport in a desperate attempt to flee.
In Kunduz, a major provincial capital, residents were unconvinced by promises of peace from their new rulers.
“I am afraid, because I do not know what will happen and what they will do,” one resident said.
An American soldier watched as refugees boarded a Navy ship off the coast of Vietnam in May 1975.Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
It was the end of a decades-long American military engagement overseas, and thousands of U.S. allies were clamoring to board the last planes leaving for, they hoped, eventual resettlement in the United States. Their capital had fallen. Deadly reprisals for those who stayed behind were almost certain.
It was 1975, the tumultuous backdrop was Southeast Asia, and Washington largely opened America’s doors, letting in some 300,000 refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia over the next four years. Joseph R. Biden Jr., then a young senator from Delaware, co-sponsored landmark legislation that won unanimous passage in the Senate and was signed into law in 1980, divorcing refugee admissions from U.S. foreign policy and generally expanding the number allowed into the country each year.
Now, as similar scenes of chaos and desperation unfold in Kabul with the conclusion of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan, most analysts say there is little chance that the United States will repeat the extensive refugee resettlement effort that accompanied the end of the war in Vietnam.
Decades of lukewarm public sentiment over refugees, a toxic political stalemate over immigration and contemporary concerns over terrorism and the coronavirus pandemic have all but eliminated the possibility of a similar mass mobilization.
