President Biden And Afghanistan: A New Heart of Darkness in Central Asia?
In 1899 Joseph Conrad published his fictional account of a trip up the Congo River into the Congo Free State, nineteenth century Africa’s colonial “Heart of Darkness.” In 1979, Francis Ford Coppola adopted Conrad’s work to his film Apocalypse Now, which moved the story from the Congo to Vietnam and Cambodia during the Vietnam War. While one of the best remembered lines from Apocalypse Now might be Colonel Kurtz’s “The horror! The horror!” Americans would do well to remember another line originally penned by Conrad: “It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.”
Choices have consequences. The nightmare that has been the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and its possible future consequences for the United States and the West are the result of President Biden’s policy choices.
In his address to the nation on August 17, President Biden clearly stated that the continued presence of U.S. forces in Afghanistan was not in accord with America’s national interests. Those interests are laid out in the Biden Administration’s Interim National Security Strategic Guidance (NSC-1v2.pdf (whitehouse.gov). Released by the White House on March 3, 2021 and clearly bearing the imprimatur “President Joseph H. Biden, Jr.” in the lower right hand corner, the stated purpose of this document is to “convey President Biden’s vision for how America will engage with the world (Interim National Security Strategic Guidance | The White House).”
On page 14 of his Interim Guidance, the President stated, “We will make smart and disciplined choices regarding our national defense and the responsible use of our military, while elevating diplomacy as our tool of first resort.” On page 15 he stated, “The United States should not, and will not, engage in ‘forever wars’ that have cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars,” and went on to state that “We will work to responsibly end America’s longest war in Afghanistan while ensuring that Afghanistan does not again become a safe haven for terrorist attacks against the United States.”
While few would question President Biden’s decision to end the war in Afghanistan, the way in which he did so casts doubt on his administration’s ability to make “smart and disciplined choices” regarding America’s national defense. Rather than working responsibly to end America’s longest war, President Biden has set the conditions for Afghanistan to once again become a repressive haven for terrorists, one likely to be allied with America’s adversaries.
While no new national leader has been announced after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on August 15, the Taliban (the Religious Students Movement) are the de facto rulers of Afghanistan and have declared it to now be the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” the same name under which they ruled the country from 1996 to 2001 (Taliban declare ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’ | The Hill). The return of the Emirate will clearly be regarded as a signal victory in some quarters. Along with capturing enough U.S. – supplied arms and materiel from the Afghan National Army to set themselves up in business as the new global jihadi arms bazaar, the Taliban have “shown the lands of Islam, as well as the Global South, how to defeat the self-referential, seemingly invincible US/NATO empire (The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan back with a bang – Asia Times).”
According to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security intelligence assessment released by Yahoo! News, Taliban control of Afghanistan “provides al-Qaeda and other associated terrorists opportunities to bolster their global appeal by touting [their] longstanding alliance with the group and commitment to driving foreign troops from Afghanistan (Exclusive: Afghanistan withdrawal ‘could drive a surge in radicalization’ and terrorist attacks, says leaked government report (yahoo.com).” In fact, al-Qaeda senior leaders released a formal statement “congratulating the Islamic ummah [community of believers] on the occasion of the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan (Al Qaeda praises Taliban’s ‘historic victory’ in Afghanistan | FDD’s Long War Journal)” and key al-Qaeda leaders have made a “triumphant return” to Afghanistan, apparently without any concerns for being seen in public (Taliban celebrate, al Qaeda leaders return to Afghanistan day after U.S. exit – Washington Times).
In addition to re-hosting al-Qaeda, the Department of Homeland Security has warned that the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan “could drive a surge in radicalization of U.S. – based violent extremists [a euphemism for terrorists] and probably contribute to increased support for foreign terrorist organizations in the United States including facilitation activities and attempted travel to Afghanistan.” DHS also cautioned that its “ability to provide advanced warning of attacks inspired by the fluid situation in Afghanistan is constrained by the individualized nature of the radicalization and mobilization processes and [terrorists’] ability to conduct attacks with little or no warning.”
The aftermath of President Bidens’ precipitate decision to withdraw from Afghanistan is also likely to present his administration with a new and wider range of strategic challenges. While President Biden has promised to “maintain the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and other countries (The War on Terror—in Afghanistan and Elsewhere—Is Far from Over, Biden Says – Government Executive (govexec.com),” the regional and global security environments have changed significantly since the U.S. first entered Afghanistan in 2001, and the Taliban are likely to benefit from those changes.
The Taliban have actively sought to cultivate good relationships with some of the key players in Eurasia – Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, and the Central Asian states. Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran all have important security and economic interests in Afghanistan which they are not likely to sacrifice; Pakistan’s Interservice Intelligence (ISI) effectively created the Taliban and provided them with a safe haven. The Russian and Chinese embassies remain open for business in Kabul, with the Chinese reportedly already planning a rare-earth mining agreement with the Taliban (The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan back with a bang – Asia Times).
Russia and China are key players in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – which some view as an anti-U.S. bulwark in Central Asia (The Shanghai Cooperation Organization | Council on Foreign Relations (cfr.org) – and Iran is reportedly scheduled to join the SCO as a full member.
This raises the specter of an Afghanistan ruled by the Taliban playing host to al-Qaeda and serving as both a jihadi arms room and engine of radicalization joined in at least some form of tacit alliance with America’s most dangerous adversaries. Such indeed would constitute a new Heart of Darkness in Central Asia. (This might be predictably dismissed as a worst-case scenario, but that is precisely what policy makers and national security planners get paid to think about and warn against.)
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has no doubt brought continuing horror to many of that country’s people. It is also likely to present the United States with a new and dangerous set of security challenges. Going forward, Americans should remember that all of these are the resultant nightmare consequences of President Biden’s choice.
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The author is a retired U.S. Army officer and a retired senior civilian employee of the U.S. Department of Defense. He is a regular contributor to The Prickly Pear on national security issues.
