Joe Biden has tried to emulate Barack Obama at almost every turn. During his first days in office, Biden issued many executive orders that aimed to undo the progress of the Trump years, creating, essentially, a reset to the Obama-era standard. Now, with economic malaise, high gas prices, a return to the Paris climate treaty, an attempt to restore the Iran nuclear deal, and boys playing girls sports, America has gone full Obama Retro.
Biden seems to be trying to emulate Obama in other ways as well. Desperate to get us out of Afghanistan, Biden set an arbitrary timeline. Now, insurgents “have taken more than a dozen provincial capitals in recent days and now control more than two-thirds of the country just weeks before the U.S. plans to withdraw its last troops,” reports Fox News. According to the New York Times, three major cities are under their control, and Taliban fighters are now “well-positioned to attack Kabul.”
The United States military is now planning to evacuate thousands of American citizens. This comes just over a month after Biden insisted that it was highly unlikely that the Taliban would overrun everything.
“Mr. President, some Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their experience in this withdrawal in Afghanistan. Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam, with some people feeling–?” a reporter asked him.
“None whatsoever. Zero,” Biden insisted. “What you had is — you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy — six, if I’m not mistaken. The Taliban is not the south — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.”
Except it turned out to be just that. Although many like to compare what’s happening now to Vietnam, I think Iraq is the more appropriate comparison.
When Obama took office, we were winning the war in Iraq. Still, driven by politics, Obama prematurely left Iraq, creating a power vacuum there that led to the rise of ISIS. Obama was highly critical of the war in Iraq and had promised to get us out. Unfortunately, his promise came at a high cost. Despite being warned in his daily intelligence briefings, he quickly dismissed ISIS as a “jayvee team” to perpetuate the myth that he had contained the terrorist threat in the Middle East. Obama’s mistake resulted in ISIS expanding its territory as it took control over large portions of Iraq, Syria, and Libya.
Luckily, Trump came in and fixed it. Within two years, there was a “100 percent” defeat of the ISIS caliphate.
And now we have Joe Biden, who, in his desire to emulate and even eclipse Obama, set his arbitrary withdrawal date for Afghanistan and was caught off-guard by the predictable results. So the question remains: What will happen next? Will the Taliban’s increasing control result in the resurgence of al-Qaeda? Will Afghanistan become ground zero for the planning of terror attacks in the West?
Just what price will we have to pay for Joe Biden’s incompetence?
