Naomi Lim of the Washington Examiner reports on the potential electoral impact of the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.
As the family and friends of the U.S. service members in Afghanistan look forward to embracing their loved ones again, President Joe Biden is bracing for the political fallout of his botched withdrawal.
Even Democrats want congressional investigations into the Biden administration’s Afghanistan intelligence and planning failures, with Republicans betting politics will not stop at the water’s edge before 2022. But there is a long wait until next November. …
… Congressional inquiries, supported by Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Susan Wild, will probe Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal, including last week’s terrorist attack outside Kabul’s airport that killed 13 American troops and almost 200 Afghans. It will also investigate the U.S. counterattacks on the Islamic State of Khorasan insurgents, which reportedly claimed the lives of 10 civilians.
They will also likely examine the Afghan refugee resettlement process and the people abandoned in-country.
Political communications expert Martha Joynt Kumar dismissed early complaints about the White House’s Afghanistan withdrawal messaging. Instead, she focused on Biden’s underlying strategy.
“The important point in this situation is why didn’t they have an accurate reading of what was happening in Afghanistan?” the Towson University emeritus professor asked.
Foreign policy has swayed elections before, particularly when the U.S. has been in the “middle of war or serious crisis,” according to historian David Greenberg. The Rutgers University journalism professor named Vietnam in 1968, Iran in 1980, and the war on terrorism in 2004 as examples.
But 12 months remain before the 2022 campaigns begin in earnest, Greenberg told the Washington Examiner. That period of time may shield Biden and congressional Democrats from the brunt of voter rage over the president’s mishandling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
“The default position is for people to care mainly about kitchen-table issues and their economic situation,” Greenberg said. “We’re far away from an election right now.”
