On Wednesday, US Army Humvees rolled down the tarmac at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
They were paraded by Taliban fighters celebrating the third anniversary of President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan — members of the same extremist regime that harbored Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda perpetrators of 9/11.
It’s said democracy dies in darkness, and effectively on July 1, 2021, democracy in Afghanistan began dying when US military forces evacuated Bagram in the dead of night.
“Speed equals safety” was the Biden-Harris administration’s excuse at the time, yet as the last three years have proven, the world is not a safer place.
Democracy has been under global assault ever since by Russian President Vladimir Putin and stalked by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Therefore, it wasn’t surprising that Russian and Chinese officials were on hand at Bagram to celebrate Biden’s disgraceful abandonment of democracy in Afghanistan — and the Axis of Evil’s emerging ascendency in the region.
Horror at Abbey Gate
Nowhere was more foretelling of what was to come when democracy turns tail than the bloody tragedy at Abbey Gate.
Thirteen US soldiers were killed alongside 170 Afghans by a suicide bomber at Kabul Hamid Karzai International Airport.
As Biden was creating a permissive environment, Putin, in particular, was watching the US’s chaotic fleeing of Afghanistan as a Washington green light for his designs on Ukraine — and elsewhere across the Sahel, North Africa, Sudan and increasingly in Central and South America.
It wasn’t just the optics of US forces rapidly evacuating from Kabul that was putting global democracy in peril.
It was Biden’s messaging as well.
Biden’s touting that he had ended American foreign involvement in “forever wars” was equally damaging.
It was also viewed by Putin as an inducement to the Kremlin to proceed with its own wars without fear of future direct US interference.
Xi heard the same thing — and gradually, ever since, Beijing has stepped up its harassment of Taiwan and US allies in the Indo-Pacific.
Thus far, the greatest damage of Biden’s folly in Afghanistan has been in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Putin was emboldened to invade Ukraine in February 2022, and Iran was equally bolstered to continue aggressively encircling Israel with its IRGC-backed militias — and to aggressively pursue nukes.
Yet it isn’t just Biden’s backing down from “forever wars” that is putting global democracy at existential risk.
It is also his repeated fears of escalation — a fear that Putin, Xi, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and their proxies have interpreted as gold-plated invitations to militarily escalate at will.
Russia invading Ukraine was only the beginning.
The Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Russian paramilitary forces in Libya, Niger Venezuela and elsewhere, and repeated Chinese naval and air encirclements of Taiwan all flowed from Biden’s abandonment of Bagram.
It wasn’t that the White House wasn’t warned.
Both retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, then-commander of USCENTCOM, who was in charge of the Afghan withdrawal, and retired Gen. Mark Milley, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, advised Biden to retain at least 2,500 US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Global conflagration
Their advice went unheeded, and hell ultimately opened up at Abbey Gate, then quickly spread to Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Now that Afghanistan wildfire has grown into a global conflagration that is rapidly devolving into World War III.
Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan wasn’t its cause.
But it was the deadly trip wire that set Western democracy down this dangerous path.
It isn’t fatal yet. Ukraine and Israel are throwing Washington and Brussels lifelines, if only NATO will seize upon them and go for the win against Putin.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is gifting Biden the opportunity to reverse the disastrous messaging of his Afghanistan withdrawal.
By boldly taking the war to Putin and occupying areas of the Russian Kursk and Belgorod Oblasts, Zelensky and his generals are proving Biden’s escalation fears are unfounded.
Israel likewise is demonstrating that by taking the fight to Iran — including the killing in Tehran of Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of Hamas — democracy’s foes can be cowered and decisively militarily checked.
Russia and Iran understand strength and a bloody nose.
Biden’s “don’t” message is simply ignored — there is nothing behind the words.
Afghanistan can’t be undone. Further damage stemming from it can.
Ukraine and Israel are leading the way. Will Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris follow?
Or will Putin and Khamenei’s soldiers one day be driving Humvees in their victory parade?
Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. Jonathan Sweet (Ret.) served 30 years as a military intelligence officer.
