After the Kabul attack, Biden faced Benghazi-style strong opposition and failed to withdraw

August 26 is the “worst day” Joe BidenPresidency, spokesperson for the white house Jane Passaki recognize. The problem with Biden and his party is that this is not only a bad day, it may be a decisive day. The devastating attack at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, which killed 12 marines, a naval medic and 60 Afghan civilians, seemed to leave permanent pain to Biden’s presidency.

There is no exact metaphor for the fiasco in Kabul-as of Thursday night, the fiasco is not over. The collapse of Saigon on Gerrard in 1975 FordWatch; Desert One outside Tehran crashed in 1979 and destroyed Jimmy CarterPresidency George W. Bush“Mission Complete” performance on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln; the Benghazi attack in Libya in 2012 resulted in the deaths of the US ambassador and three other Americans Hillary Clinton To today. They all echoed in Biden’s disastrous ending in Afghanistan.

Benghazi’s political influence is the kind of small-scale model that Biden will face with strong opposition.And should Republicans To retake the House of Representatives next year, they will surely let the Biden administration bury the two-year investigation and hearing.

His presidency is only seven months, and his approval rating has been declining. The Suffolk University USA Today poll on August 24 showed that his approval rate was only 41%, a drop of more than 10 percentage points from the previous month. The chaos in Kabul is certainly part of the cause of this situation, but it is also considered a failure to control the southern border, rising inflation and the surge in COVID-19 cases. The deadly Kabul attack will further weaken him.

Quietly, more and more influential Democratic Party Has begun to doubt the viability of Biden as a candidate in 2024, if only because of his age.Some people are beginning to say that the question about his abilities is not just fictional Sean HannityImagination. Biden will be 82 years old in 2024. “I won’t bet,” an influential Democratic fundraiser from California told Weekly newspaper When asked last month whether he thought Biden would run for the election again.

White House officials and Democrats in Washington hoped-unrealistically-that the airlift from Kabul to completion on August 31 would not cause casualties or the Americans to stay behind. If the withdrawal goes well, Biden can declare victory, saying that he has ended the war, and the Democrats will quickly turn to their domestic agenda: the infrastructure bill, the $3.5 trillion spending bill, and the January 6 “uprising” The hearing “on Capitol Hill is designed to keep Republicans on the defensive.”

Now Biden is on the defensive.Critics have already lashed out at his changing story line about Afghanistan: In early July, he said that the desperate scene of the helicopter leaving the Saigon embassy in 1975 was “extremely unlikely” to be repeated, a month later he told ABCGeorge Stephanopolous believes that a chaotic ending is almost inevitable.

Now there will be more and more problems, not just among Republicans. Why did the army withdraw before the civilians?Do you have Pentagon Ask any questions? What does the intelligence report about the possible collapse of the Afghan National Army say? Why does the United States not insist on keeping enough troops in the country to ensure safety around Karzai Airport instead of farming to accomplish this task? Taliban? (The Haqqani terrorist organization allied with Al-Qaida and the Taliban is responsible for the security of Kabul. The person leading the operation has 5 million US dollars FBI Bounty on his head. )

Finally, why did the United States abandon its Bagram Air Force Base before expelling all civilians who wanted to leave — the Americans and Afghans who assisted the US military? This decision severely weakened the United States’ surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, as well as its ability to project power during airlifts. Does the Pentagon really support this decision, as Biden said in his speech on Thursday? “I think this is shocking,” said Jack Keane, a retired general, who provided informal advice to former President Trump on military affairs after his speech.

He is not alone. Many Democrats on Capitol Hill were shocked by the incident in Kabul. “We want answers like a few,” a senior Democratic staff member of the House Armed Services Committee told Weekly newspaper——That was before the August 26 attack.

Threats to Biden’s presidency are piling up. In a very short period of time, the possibility of another attack before the August 31 exit date is real. The same is true for the possibility that the resurrected al-Qaeda will be able to launch attacks abroad from Afghanistan again—perhaps while Biden is still in office. (Biden again asserted at a press conference on Thursday that the ability to stop such attacks by being “over the horizon” is Was widely dismissed At the Pentagon and CIA.)

After today’s Kabul tragedy, the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives is unlikely to ignore these issues. Even if they want, the Republicans and the majority of the American public will not let go.