There is a saying in business schools that A-level talents recruit A-level talents, and B-level talents recruit C-level talents. If you want to know who the Ds like Joe Biden hired, then when you watch the action of Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, the mystery is solved.
Sullivan took some time from eating bugs and making mud cakes and appeared on the CBS Sunday show “Face the Country”. As the Taliban’s August 31st deadline for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan approaches, a logical problem facing the host Ed O’Keefe is that those who will inevitably be left behind hold special immigrant visas (SIV). Of Americans and Afghans?
ED O’KEEFE: I see. With hundreds of Americans staying in Afghanistan this weekend, the State Department knew they wanted to leave the country. Will they come out before Tuesday?
Sullivan: Ed, what we are doing now is working with these people and their families one by one, guiding them to the assembly point near the airport, entering the airport, and boarding the plane home. We have the ability to get 300 Americans (approximately the number of people we think remaining) to arrive at the airport and board the plane in the remaining time. Just yesterday, the number of people we moved out exceeded this number. Therefore, from our perspective, American citizens now have the opportunity to enter the airport and evacuate safely and effectively. However, some Americans, ED, this is very important, and they have chosen not to leave Kabul so far. Maybe they have lived there for many years. Maybe they have a big family there. Our message to these Americans is that after August 31, we will ensure that any U.S. citizen and any legal permanent resident can pass safely. Yes, we will ensure the safe passage of those Afghans who help us continue to leave the country after August 31.
ED O’KEEFE: But what are you going to do? Doesn’t this mean relying on the Taliban?
Sullivan: It has nothing to do with dependence. This is to ensure that we use the influence we have available to allow the Taliban to fulfill their promises, which is very important. The Taliban have stated privately and publicly that they will allow safe passage. We will not just believe their words. We have summoned dozens of countries from all over the world to stand with us and told the Taliban that if they fail to fulfill these promises, there will be major consequences. The influence we have, the economic influence and the other forms of influence we continue to have, we believe will effectively ensure that we can let others who think of it leave after August 31.
ED O’KEEFE: The economic influence I get is because you can squeeze the officials of a country through sanctions as you like. But if you withdraw all American military equipment there, if you withdraw all, if not most of the diplomats, what influence does it have?
Sullivan: Well, first of all, you just determined the economic leverage, I won’t put it aside. We are talking about Afghanistan’s relationship with the international financial system and its access to reserves and resources of any kind. This is an important source of leverage. Second, the Taliban are looking for countries around the world that can cooperate with the United States. They are uniting the international community in a united manner to ensure safe passage. The promise is not only a promise to us, but also a promise to us. To others. And then third, of course, ED, without elaborating, we obviously retain a variety of capabilities that are neither economic nor diplomatic, and if American citizens are in some way at risk, we can assume these capabilities to move forward in Afghanistan.
No matter how you cut it, there are a lot of stupid people doing some very heavy work in this interview.
For example, Sullivan somewhat admits that if the Taliban does not keep their promises, another Iranian hostage crisis may occur, but this hostage crisis will involve hundreds of people. The threat of economic sanctions is pitiful.This transaction table has Afghanistan Import and Export Data You can sort from high to low by clicking the arrow. Take a look at which countries are Aganistan’s main trading partners, and then ask yourself which countries might help us put the screws in Afghanistan.
Ironically, one might ask whether Sullivan did not realize that he was talking about resolving a potential hostage crisis by putting economic pressure on the former industrial society.
This is not the strangest part. According to Sullivan, after the United States leaves Afghanistan, the Taliban will “allow those Americans and SIV holders who remain in Afghanistan to pass safely.” This begs the question. Assuming what he said is true, why should we deploy troops at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul in the first place? Why is there a deadline for leaving?
If the Taliban want to guarantee the repatriation or evacuation of those left behind after August 31, why can’t Biden and his followers reach the same agreement for the entire time period before August 31? What if we can rely on the Taliban, whether they act voluntarily or under duress, to complete this task next week, instead of trusting them to complete the same task in the past two weeks?
My colleague Nick Alama released the proposal made by the Taliban to the Biden White House earlier today.They offered to allow the United States to ensure the safety of Kabul and the airport to facilitate evacuation, see The Taliban made an offer to Biden that he rejected, which could have avoided the collapse of Kabul.
If we read Sullivan’s nonsense and Taliban’s proposal together and read these two things together, an interesting synthesis will appear. Perhaps the Taliban did offer to occupy the Hong Kong International Airport and facilitate the evacuation, but their proposal was rejected. The Biden White House cannot accept this proposal because it will provide politically deadly images of American citizens being processed by Taliban clerk to leave Afghanistan.
No matter how people read the interview, Sullivan admits that we will leave Americans and Afghan SIV holders behind, and we rely on the Taliban to help them leave the country.
