Republicans and Democrats are trading blame over the withdrawal from Afghanistan, battling over who is responsible for the fallout from the longest war in American history.
The fighting has raised concerns that disputes over the past could undermine ongoing efforts to help Afghans today.
The blame game has played out this week in both the presidential election and in Congress, where committees have released conflicting reports that have led to them considering withdrawal.
But the debate about Afghanistan is largely past-oriented, ignoring opportunities to strengthen programs to bring back allies left behind in the withdrawal and to provide stability and a path to citizenship for those currently in the United States.
Critics also see a disappointing lack of accountability for the wars many administrations have been involved in.
“Afghanistan has been a bipartisan, multi-administration failure, and talking about how to fix what can still be fixed has to be a bipartisan, multi-administration conversation. And that can't happen if we're constantly caught up in the politics of the moment,” said Joseph Azam, president of the Afghan American Foundation.
“And I think that that undermines the possibility of a calm, bipartisan conversation about what happened and of addressing the issues that still remain.”
Two-decade U.S. commitment to Afghanistan ended with a chaotic withdrawal that left desperate crowds surrounding the airport. A suicide bombing killed 13 U.S. troops and at least 170 Afghans. About 80,000 Afghans made it to the U.S. after the last plane took off, but many who had supported U.S. troops and U.S.-led democratization efforts were left behind by a Taliban regime that is rapidly reversing those efforts.
During Tuesday night's debate, neither candidate took responsibility for the withdrawal. Former President Trump signed the expulsion agreement with the Taliban and left it to President Biden to carry out the withdrawal and evacuations.
Vice President Harris said during the debate that she agreed with Biden's decision to leave the country, save $300 million a day and pull Americans out of combat zones.
But she mostly criticized Trump's agreement to end the war, before shifting the topic to his reported plans to negotiate with the Taliban at Camp David.
“Let's understand how we got to where we are. Donald Trump, during his presidency, negotiated one of the weakest deals imaginable. He describes himself as a dealmaker. Even his national security advisor says it was a weak, terrible deal,” Harris said, accusing Trump of “bypassing” the Afghan government in his negotiations.
“And so the president at the time invited the Taliban to Camp David, a very important place for us Americans, a place that celebrates the importance of American diplomacy, a place where we invite and host respected world leaders.”
Trump mentioned Afghanistan at various points during the debate, even when it wasn't an issue, but he gave conflicting answers about the value of the deal he brokered with the Taliban.
“It was a very good agreement. The reason it was good was because we would have withdrawn. We would have withdrawn before them, but we wouldn't have lost our soldiers. We wouldn't have left so many Americans behind. And we wouldn't have left behind $85 billion worth of brand new, amazing military equipment. And then in the end, they screwed it up,” he said.
However, he also noted that the agreement was “terminated by us.” [the Taliban] They didn't do what they were supposed to do.”
At another point, Trump said he “would have fired all of the generals” involved, even though the State Department was heavily involved in the evacuation.
Neither candidate expressed regret about the withdrawal or offered any proposals for how to deal with the country going forward or how to help stranded Afghans who are risking their lives for the United States.
“For 20 years, American soldiers, civil society and military families poured their blood, sweat and tears into that country, and we watched it fall apart before our eyes, and no one is willing to take responsibility for it. [admit] “Something must have gone wrong, something could have been done differently,” said Chris Purdy, founder of the Chamberlain Network, a veterans group that works on democracy issues.
“We're still stuck with the idea that we should care about the Afghan people. Neither side seems to really care about that. They just want to blame the other for their failures.”
Lawmakers traded sharp accusations over Afghanistan this week after Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee released a 350-page report, prompting Democrats on the committee to release a rival report.
The Republican report presents a comprehensive picture of the withdrawal but says little about President Trump's role in the ordeal, including the limitations of the agreement he signed or his administration's dismal record on issuing visas to Afghans who helped the U.S. war effort.
In a video posted to X, Azam initially urged people not to read either report, saying they were designed to score political blows and place blame on the other while showing little reflection on what could have been done better within his own party.
“Democrats and Republicans are just mired in a quagmire about what happened,” he said.
“This falls into the same pattern that has played out for more than three years, with Republicans trying to get away from the fact that Trump negotiated this deal and some Democrats trying to get away from the fact that Biden implemented it,” Azam added.
“The other real problem was that nobody talked about the impact on 40 million Afghans. How long are we going to continue to pretend that the only impact of withdrawing from Afghanistan was political in the United States?”
Advocates have been trying for years to get Congress to pass legislation originally called the Afghanistan Reconciliation Act, which would have provided residency for tens of thousands of Afghans who had not yet been given grounds to live permanently in the U.S. It also included measures to strengthen the path for those left behind by the withdrawal to come to the U.S. as refugees. A similar law has since been dubbed the “Implementing the Promise to Our Afghan Allies Act.”
But the bill did not gain support after several Republican lawmakers expressed concerns about vetting Afghans, even though allowing them citizenship would trigger additional security screening for a group of people already in the United States.
The Democratic report included no recommendations, and the Republican report specifically supported several legislative efforts but did not mention legislation that would allow displaced Afghans to stay permanently in the United States.
Instead, they wrote, “The U.S. government should honor its commitments to the brave Afghans who risked their lives to fight for freedom from the Taliban.”
Purdy was one of many critics who pointed out that the report was released two months before the election.
“They're putting this out as a partisan political tool. I don't think it's going to help. What's going to help is actual legislation that Congress can move forward to solve the problem, and we've been pushing for this for three years, trying to get something done. Since September 2021, we haven't actually passed any significant legislation that would help the Afghan people,” he said.
When the report was released earlier this week, Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) criticized the Biden administration for the timing of its release and accused it of obstructing the committee's work.
“We had hoped that this report would be released sooner than today, and indeed we had hoped that it would be released shortly after the withdrawal and emergency evacuation, in late 2021 or 2022,” he said in a statement.
McCaul has said he is focused on accountability for the withdrawal, and the report's first recommendation is a resolution formally censuring Biden, Harris and 13 other administration officials.
He wants a solution for our allies in Afghanistan but has not yet publicly supported legislation to achieve it.
Beyond the legislation, advocates hope a separate report from the Afghanistan War Commission will examine the full scope of a war that is otherwise unaccountable.
“My feeling here is that it's not just Republicans who are in the wrong, it's Democrats who are simply turning a blind eye to clearly bad things that are happening and continuing to act as if nothing bad is happening,” Purdy said.
“So I don't know how to balance the two. I don't know if the adults in the room can look at both sides equally and say, 'This was your mistake. This was our mistake.'”
