Sunday 15 January 2023

Congress investigation of Afghanistan withdrawal will open a can of monsters

What a difference it makes for the Biden administration to have a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. All kinds of investigations to embarass Biden are now in the melting pot, perhaps most notably his administration's handling of the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. Whatever comes out of that will be potentially disastrous for Biden and since the Republicans are calling the shots I anticipate they will delay publication of the report until it can have maximum impact on Biden's chances of winning another four years in office. Republican Representative for Texas Michael McCaul is in the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and he has already made it clear he wants full cooperation from the intelligence services, the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department etc etc. I doubt anything good will come out of it apart from a great deal of heroism by many of the thousands of American troops involved in the evacuation. Some of the stories about C-17 transport aircraft crews battling to help hundreds of Afghans onto planes to take them away to safety are remarkable. But the chaotic scenes at Kabul airport that ultimately led to a catastrophic Isis terrorist suicide attack were viewed around the world. A Republican-led inquiry into these appalling scenes and the general sense that we were witnessing a rerun of the withdrawal from Vietnam will go very badly for Biden who of course took the decision to get all US troops out of Afghanistan in such short order, believing for some extraordinary reason that the Taliban would play ball and at least wait a few months before rushing into Kabul to seize power. The Republicans will have a field day. And there will be other House inquiries into the Biden administration which will bring more and more bad news for the president. You do wonder whether he will have the stomach for what's coming and will still want to be president for another four years.

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