One year after Afghan war, Biden struggles to find footing
World
One year after Afghan war, Biden struggles to find footing
WASHINGTON (AP) — The 12 months since the chaotic end to the U.S. war in Afghanistan haven’t been easy for Joe Biden.
The new president was flying high early in the summer of 2021, the American electorate largely approving of Biden’s performance and giving him high marks for his handling of the economy and the coronavirus pandemic.
But come August, the messy U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan seemed to mark the start of things going sideways for him.
It was a disquieting bookend to the 20-year American war: the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed, a grisly bombing killed 13 U.S. troops and 170 others, and thousands of desperate Afghans descended on Kabul’s airport in search of a way out before the final U.S. cargo planes departed over the Hindu Kush.
The disastrous drawdown was, at the time, the biggest crisis that the relatively new administration had faced. It left sharp questions about Biden and his team’s competence and experience — the twin pillars central to his campaign for the White House.
As the one-year anniversary of the end of the Afghan war nears, the episode — a turning point in Biden’s presidency — continues to resonate as he struggles to shake dismal polling numbers and lift American confidence in his administration ahead of November’s critical midterm elections.
“It was a pivotal moment that he hasn’t ever really recovered from,” said Christopher Borick, director of the Institute of Public Opinion at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania. “Things were going really well in terms of how voters viewed him in terms of bringing stability to the economy and how the government addressed the pandemic, issues that are higher priorities to the American electorate than the war in Afghanistan. But Afghanistan cracked that image of competency, and he hasn’t ever really been able to repair it.”
The Afghanistan debacle was just the start of a series of crises for Biden.
As Biden was still dealing with fallout from the Afghan withdrawal last summer, COVID-19 cases began spiking again. Layered over that in coming were months were strains on the economy caused by inflation, labor shortages and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The sum of it left Americans weary.
In the weeks before Afghanistan went sideways, Biden was riding high. His approval rating stood at 59% in a July 2021 poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. An AP-NORC poll conducted last month put his rating at 36%.
White House officials and Biden allies hope the president is now at another turning point — this one in his favor.
The administration has recently racked up high-profile wins on Capitol Hill, including passage of the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act designed to boost the U.S. semiconductor industry. Congress also passed a program to treat veterans who may have been exposed to toxic substances from burning trash pits on U.S. military bases.
And over the weekend the White House sealed the deal on far-reaching legislation addressing health care and climate change that also raises taxes on high earners and large corporations, a package the administration says will also help mitigate the impact of high inflation.
The legislative victories followed Biden ordering the CIA drone strike in Kabul that killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri, who along with Osama bin Laden masterminded the 9/11 attacks. Biden says the operation validates the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.
“I made the decision to end America’s longest war ... and that we’d be able to protect America and root out terrorism in Afghanistan or anywhere in the world,” Biden told a Democratic National Committee virtual rally last week. “And that’s exactly what we did.”
Biden had other big legislative wins after the Afghanistan debacle.
In November, he signed into law a $1 trillion infrastructure deal to fund rebuilding of roads, bridges and other big projects In April, the Senate confirmed Biden’s history-making U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Jackson Brown, who became the first Black woman to serve on the high court. And in June, Biden notched another win as Congress passed the most significant changes to gun laws in nearly 30 years. But those legislative accomplishments weren’t rewarded with a boost in his standing with voters.
