Andrew Peek et al, Atlantic Council
Our experts, many of whom have spent many years in the trenches on Afghanistan policy, are sending their reactions as these historic developments unfold. This post will be continuously updated as more come in and we track this fast-moving story.
John Ivison, National Post
The Prime Minister's reasoning on why the moment is 'pivotal' and 'consequential' revolved around Canadians' need to choose how to finish the fight against COVID and 'build back better.' That sounds expensive.
Justin Ling, Maclean's
Justin Ling: The PM often says there's 'always more to do', but after six years in power it's worth asking why—and what work has really gotten done at all?
Ben Sasse, National Review
hile President Joe Biden cowers at Camp David, the Taliban are humiliating America. The retreat from Afghanistan is our worst foreign-policy disaster in a generation. As the Taliban marches into Kabul, they're murdering civilians, reimposing their vicious Islamist law, and preparing to turn Afghanistan back into a bandit regime. The U.S. embassy has told Americans to shelter in place. Refugees are fleeing to the airport, begging to escape the coming bloodbath. None...
Graham Fuller, Responsible Statecraft
The final end of the government in Kabul is at hand as the inexorable logic of regime collapse gains momentum. It seems more of a surprise to current policymakers than to those many observers with a long-time familiarity with the country's dynamics. It will not be pleasant to watch, but it has long been inevitable given the utterly unrealistic ambitions and poor policy execution that Washington has maintained in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, those darker... Читать дальше...
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times
The Taliban's defeat of the US will be a boost to jihadis across the globe.
Tom Nichols, The Atlantic
Charli Carpenter, FP
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan should continue. But a new military engagement should begin.
Al Monitor
Two months in, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid remain both partners and rivals as the new government passes a budget, grapples with COVID-19 and Iran and seeks to strengthen already warm ties with the Biden administration.
William Wechsler, Atlantic Council
The US military intervention in Afghanistan began in the crucible of terrorism. Twenty years later, as US forces withdraw from the country and the Taliban go on the offensive, it is yet again terrorism—or a lack thereof—that could determine how President Joe Biden's Afghanistan policy is remembered.
Slawomir Sierakowski, Project Syndicate
Within weeks of returning to Polish domestic politics, former European Council president Donald Tusk has already emerged as the father of the opposition - and with the public support to prove it. At the same time, the country's illiberal ruling party finds itself on a collision course with just about everyone.
Mark Galeotti, Moscow Times
The arrest of David Smith in Berlin appears to show that there are more than a few in the West who see something genuinely admirable in Russia — or at the very least something unjust in how it is treated.
Mike Allen, Axios
Rarely has an American president's predictions been so wrong, so fast, so convincingly as President Biden on Afghanistan. Usually military operations and diplomacy are long; the outcomes, foggy. Not here.
David Loyn, Spectator
Taleban forces have now surrounded Kabul, saying they would not take the Afghan capital by force if peaceful surrender could be agreed. Washington has asked the Taleban to wait for two weeks until a transitional government can be agreed - but after Joe Biden's decision to withdraw, America is in no position to negotiate. The Afghan government has no force capable of seeing off the Taleban, which in the last few days has now captured all other major cities - replacing... Читать дальше...
Sumantra Maitra, National Interest
There is plenty to criticise both Trump or Biden for depending on where one stands politically, but surely safeguarding women's rights in a semi-feudal region is not the burden of American taxpayers, at the cost of American treasure and blood.
Ido Vock, New Statesman
The US president's insistence that the Taliban would not retake Afghanistan has been exposed as disastrously complacent.
Stratfor Worldview
This article was first published by Stratfor Worldview and is reprinted here with permission.
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Kurt Volker, CEPA
The statements from the U.S. administration that the Taliban risks international isolation if it pursues a military victory in Afghanistan are unmoored from reality. It is part of the Taliban's ideology to reject modernism and the international community — and the reputation won by forcing the U.S. to leave is worth far more than aid budgets. And indeed, having earned a reputation for abandoning its mission, its friends, and its allies, it is the United States that may actually feel more isolated. Читать дальше...
