Washington: The moment was circled on the calendar months ago, yet when the longest war in American history finally ended it still came as a surprise.

When President Joe Biden announced that all American troops would be out of Afghanistan by August 31 it was widely assumed to be referring to US time.

Instead the final American military jet took off from Hamid Karzai International Airport just before the stroke of midnight on August 30 in Kabul, a day earlier than most people expected.

A 20-year war that most Americans had long ago tired of was coming to a sad and profoundly unsatisfying end. And why should it feel any different? This was a surrender and a defeat for both America and the western world.

It would be churlish to say nothing was achieved in two decades. A jihadist foreign terrorist organisation has not directed a major attack inside the United States since September 11, 2001. That’s thanks in some part to the destabilisation of Al-Qaeda’s network in Afghanistan. A generation of Afghan girls could go to school and live in relative freedom.

Those days are now over. Well before the last C-17 left the tarmac, the war was already lost and Afghan democracy, such as it was, had collapsed. Two weeks had passed since the Taliban – deposed by a US-led coalition after the September 11 attacks – seized control of Kabul. No-one, least of all the US intelligence agencies, expected the Afghan government and military to fold anywhere nearly as quickly.

The first impression of the subsequent evacuation effort was one of chaos, as desperate Afghans fell to their deaths from the side of a military plane.

As the withdrawal deadline approached, the Biden administration could console itself with the fact that no American troops or civilians had died during the pull-out. That saving grace was shattered last Friday when a suicide bomber detonated a vest packed with explosives outside the airport gate, killing 13 US troops and at least 169 Afghans. The bloodiest day for the US military in Afghanistan in a decade came in the war’s final days.

It’s a significant achievement that over 100,000 people were evacuated from Afghanistan in such a short timeframe. But the White House cannot boast that it got all its people out. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken estimates between 100 and 200 Americans who would like to evacuate remain stuck in Afghanistan.

The calculus for the Biden administration and military leaders was clear: getting a few more Americans out of Afghanistan was not worth the risk of putting US troops at risk of another terrorist attack. Thousands of Afghans who assisted the NATO military effort and fear Taliban reprisals remain in the country despite being desperate to leave.

“There’s a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure,” General Kenneth McKenzie, the head of the US Central Command, said. “We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out.”

Few Americans had heard of McKenzie until recent days. But it was he who announced the end of the war to the American people. Just like on the day the Taliban captured Kabul, Biden was nowhere to be seen.

A president’s decisions are more important than how he or she communicates them. But communication matters in leadership and in politics.

It’s baffling that Biden couldn’t front the cameras and address the nation on such an important day – especially given he set the departure date. Any solace he can provide about the end of the war will have to wait 24 hours.

Like on the day the Taliban seized control of Kabul, Joe Biden was unseen on the day US troops left Afghanistan. Credit:AP

As the President who presided over the end of the war, Biden is in a world of political pain right now. His defenders say that is not fair and that he’s paying the price for his predecessors’ mistakes. That’s true. George W Bush took his eye of the ball by invading Iraq. Barack Obama prolonged the war by surging troops. Donald Trump signed a “surrender pact” with the Taliban that committed the US to remove all troops by May this year.

The war is over but the recriminations are just beginning. There’s plenty of blame to go around.

As for the future, it would be naive to expect the Taliban to be anything but repressive towards its people. The fear for the wider world is that Afghanistan again becomes a breeding ground for terrorism. If that happens, we’re right back where we started.

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