Afghanistan Withdrawal: A political turning point for way public felt about Biden

This article is part of a Fox News Digital series examining the consequences of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan one year ago this week.

The Biden administration’s series of missteps during the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal one year ago, which led to the death of 13 U.S. service members, marked a political turning point for the public’s perception of President Biden’s competency and ability to lead.

Before what turned out to be a watershed moment in his presidency, Biden was enjoying high approval ratings on issues ranging from the economy to his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Gallup, Biden’s approval rating peaked in April 2021, shortly after he took office, and has been trending downward ever since, with a dramatic 6-point drop in the weeks following the Afghanistan withdrawal on Aug. 30, 2021.

Biden’s decision to pull troops from Afghanistan faced widespread global backlash after Taliban insurgents retook the country in a matter of days on Aug. 15, 2021, essentially winning the war 20 years after their ouster by U.S.-led forces. Just a month earlier, Biden told Americans that the likelihood of a Taliban takeover was “highly unlikely.”

On Aug. 18, 2021, three days after the Taliban seized the capital of Kabul and forced the U.S. Embassy there to evacuate, Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that intelligence did not indicate the Afghan government would quickly collapse – despite reports stating that is exactly what the intelligence predicted. The president also falsely claimed that “no one’s being killed” in Afghanistan despite reports at that time of at least seven deaths amid the chaos at Kabul’s airport.

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Then on Aug. 26, 2021, during the U.S. military’s mass evacuation at the Kabul airport, suicide bombers killed 183 people, including 13 U.S. service members. The U.S. retaliated by launching two drone strikes against suspected ISIS-K terrorists, one of which ended up killing 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children.

The military evacuation, which required thousands of additional U.S. troops on the ground and significant cooperation from the Taliban to complete, ended a day ahead of deadline on Aug. 30, 2021, leaving behind hundreds of U.S. citizens and tens of thousands of Afghan allies, despite Biden’s promise days earlier to “get them all out.” 

After the evacuation, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee there were only 100 Americans citizens left in Afghanistan who wanted to leave. The State Department recently confirmed to Politico, however, that more than 800 American citizens and at least 600 legal permanent residents of the U.S. have been evacuated since the withdrawal, as the Taliban-led country descends further into totalitarianism and poverty.

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The State Department did not give a number when asked by Fox News Digital how many Americans who want to leave and Afghans who have applied for special immigrant visas remain in Afghanistan.

“We continue to work with U.S. citizens who have expressed a desire to depart Afghanistan and have the necessary travel documents to do so,” a spokesman said. “This number fluctuates regularly as U.S. citizens change their minds about leaving, or as some continue to return to Afghanistan for various reasons.”

Critics immediately demanded that heads roll for the Afghanistan debacle, with calls for the firings of Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.

Despite telling Americans after Afghanistan’s fall that “the buck stops with me,” Biden repeatedly blamed former President Trump and the Afghan military for the country’s swift collapse. While Biden admitted that the Taliban’s takeover had caught the U.S. off guard, he has insisted he made the right decision in ending the war and has declined to fire a single official over the pullout.

While polls at the time showed that Americans overwhelmingly supported withdrawing from Afghanistan, they disapproved of Biden’s handling of it. A survey of U.S. civilians and military veterans conducted by the Veterans and Citizens Initiative released in November 2021 found that 57% of Americans believed the U.S. did not leave Afghanistan with honor, and 70% of veterans said the same. A survey conducted by the group of Afghanistan veterans found that 76% felt “angry,” 73% felt “betrayed,” and 67% felt “humiliated” about the withdrawal.

Biden’s decision to act unilaterally in withdrawing troops without consulting his NATO allies sparked backlash from officials in the U.K., Germany, Italy and France, among others. During NATO’s summit meeting in June 2021, which Biden attended, Czech Republic President Milos Zeman reportedly called the decision “a betrayal.” 

Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, said the withdrawal was “a catastrophe for the Afghan people, for Western values and credibility and for the developing of international relations.’’

Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the German parliament’s foreign relations committee, said the withdrawal “does fundamental damage to the political and moral credibility of the West.”

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Earlier this month, Biden took a victory lap after ordering the CIA drone strike in Kabul that killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, who along with Usama bin Laden masterminded the 9/11 attacks, saying it validated his decision to pull out of Afghanistan. 

“I made the decision to end America’s longest war… and that we’d be able to protect America and root out terrorism in Afghanistan or anywhere in the world,” Biden told a Democratic National Committee virtual rally. “And that’s exactly what we did.” 

Republicans, however, have argued that Zawahri’s presence in the Afghanistan capital is proof that terrorists have regained a foothold in the country.

“It is noteworthy where Zawahri was: In Kabul. So al Qaeda is back as a result of the Taliban being back in power,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters. “That precipitous decision to withdraw a year ago produced the return of the conditions that were there before 9/11.”

Biden is also facing criticism from refugee advocates who say the administration has been slow to resettle Afghans who assisted the U.S. war effort, creating a backlog of more than 74,000 Afghan applicants for special immigrant visas.

Biden’s approval rating cratered to 38% in July, according to Gallup, the lowest of any president in the poll’s history. The president campaigned in 2020 on his decades of foreign policy experience with promises to repair the U.S. standing on the world stage after four years of the Trump administration. However, critics have often compared the withdrawal to the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War and have said Biden’s foreign policy blunders have given the green light to authoritarian leaders to act aggressively across the globe.

Two months after the Afghanistan withdrawal, Russian President Vladimir Putin renewed a major buildup of troops near the Ukrainian border in October 2021. On Feb. 24 of this year, Russia invaded Ukraine in a bloody and economically devastating war that continues today.

Critics have said the Biden administration was too slow to act in imposing economic sanctions against Russia during the months-long military buildup. The administration declined to impose any sanctions against Russia until two days before the full-blown invasion occurred. Critics have also said the administration was too slow to send arms to Ukraine, and that it shouldn’t make the same mistake when it comes to Taiwan.

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Experts say Chinese President Xi Jinping has been closely watching the U.S. response to Russia to determine his own potential military action regarding Taiwan. China has long claimed Taiwan as its own territory, despite the island having its own democratic government.

In February, as Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, nine Chinese aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense zone. Moreover, Beijing has refused to condemn Russia for the invasion and supports Russia in opposing the further enlargement of NATO. In turn, Russia has said it endorses China’s view of self-governing Taiwan as an “inalienable part of China, and opposes any form of independence of Taiwan.”

While tensions have been mounting between China and Taiwan for decades, China’s cozying up to Russia during the Ukraine invasion has concerned foreign policy experts.

“The road to Russia’s invasion of Kyiv goes through Kabul – Moscow observed Biden’s utter fecklessness in Afghanistan and rightly guessed that he would face minimal pushback if he invaded Ukraine,” James Carafano, the vice president for foreign and security policy at the Heritage Foundation, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “More ominously, the Chinese Communist Party has taken notice, as well. The Taliban were major winners in the botched withdrawal, but the CCP might have been an even bigger beneficiary. 

“Meanwhile, Biden’s numerous failures blindsided and frustrated key U.S. allies, most notably our NATO partners, many of whom had served and sacrificed in Afghanistan alongside U.S. forces,” he continued. “According to Jake Sullivan, Biden’s own national security adviser, the president dodged phone calls from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson for days after the fall of Kabul. Biden’s reckless actions in Afghanistan undermined global confidence in the United States, undercutting his campaign selling point about ‘rebuilding alliances.’”

RUSSIA’S INVASION OF UKRAINE PUTS TAIWAN ON HIGH ALERT OVER MAINLAND CHINA THREAT

The White House was forced to clean up comments by Biden in May after he suggested the U.S. would defend Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese invasion. The White House said the United States’ “One China” policy, which states that the U.S. acknowledges the Beijing government as the sole government of China, still stands.

Republicans have called on Biden to recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty in light of Russia’s invasion, arguing that it would send the ultimate message to Xi and despots around the world, but the president has made no indication that such an action is on the table.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., caused a headache for Biden earlier this month by traveling to Taiwan after Xi warned the president in a phone call that, when it comes to Taiwan, “those who play with fire will eventually get burned.” 

Biden’s national security and military advisers cautioned Pelosi against the visit, warning that it could increase tensions with Beijing, but she went anyway. The Chinese military held extensive live-fire exercises surrounding Taiwan in the week following the speaker’s visit. And while her visit garnered overwhelming support from Republicans, the White House has refused to express support for the trip.

The Pelosi controversy came just weeks after Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia to plead for increased oil production as prices at the pump in the U.S. reached record highs. The July trip was widely criticized by the media and members of his own party after Biden greeted Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman with a fist bump instead of a handshake during the visit, despite previously vowing to make the country a “pariah” for human rights abuses and its killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Now, Xi is now expected to embark on his first overseas trip since January 2020, traveling to Saudi Arabia to meet with the crown prince in the coming months, sending a clear message to Biden, who argued in July that improving U.S.-Saudi relations was essential to positioning the U.S. “in the best possible position to outcompete China.”

Biden’s multiple foreign policy blunders, starting with Afghanistan, have caught up with him in the polls. A recent Quinnipiac poll showed Biden has a 36% approval rating on foreign policy a year and a half into his presidency, with 55% disapproving.

“Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan sent a clear signal of to the rest of the world, to allies and adversaries alike, that the United States under Joe Biden lacks the resolve to defend its citizens and its interests,” Carafano said. “The rising aggression of key U.S. adversaries can be traced back to these fateful days last August.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.