Biden's Afghanistan moves shape up as political hedging

Which way will the political winds blow in the US after the dramatic, deadly withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan?

In the short term, the scenes of chaos and disorder have taken a toll on President Joe Biden's standing, if one goes by polls, and also have subjected him to bipartisan rebukes.

A common thread in the polls is that Americans wanted the US to extract itself from the war but were angered by the frantic way the withdrawal unfolded.

A Pew Research Center poll released Tuesday found that 54 percent of Americans say it was the right decision to leave Afghanistan, while 42 percent say it was wrong. Only 27 percent rated Biden's handling of the situation as excellent or good, while 29 percent rated it fair, and 42 percent called it poor.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 59 percent of Americans disapproved of Biden's handling of Afghanistan, while 38 percent approved.

Republicans are looking to wield the Afghanistan response against the Democrats in the 2022 congressional elections.

While some Republicans in the House have floated the idea of impeaching Biden, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday basically said that wouldn't happen, as Democrats hold a slim majority in the House and Senate, the latter by only a tiebreaking vote.

"There isn't going to be any impeachment, but I think they have a good chance of a very bad election next year," said McConnell, a Kentucky Republican.

"Foreign policy usually doesn't drive midterms unless American lives or economic interests are directly at stake. The Kabul incident will hurt Biden in the short run but will drag down the party only if there is a hostage crisis or an Afghanistan-based terror attack," Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College, told NBC News.

Biden could be banking that in the long run getting the US out of Afghanistan will be viewed positively.

One theory as to why Biden faced such a vociferous reaction from both major political parties is because he went against the desires of Washington's foreign policy elite and "hawks".

"Biden's decision to withdraw has handed Afghanistan over to the Taliban and created a terrorist sanctuary," said US Representative Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican and daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, one of the architects of the Iraq War.

"Joe Biden just completed his shameful retreat from Afghanistan, leaving American citizens and Afghan allies behind under the rule of a terrorist government. If anything happens to them, Biden is to blame," said Nikki Haley, a Republican and former US ambassador to the United Nations.

Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was "disappointed that the Biden administration clearly did not accurately assess the implications of a rapid US withdrawal".

In an article Wednesday, Mark Landler, The New York Times London bureau chief suggested that Biden's move was anathema to such thinking.

"Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the doctrine of an aggressive, expeditionary foreign policy — in which all options, including military force, are invariably on the table — has become a bipartisan article of faith in Washington. The news media, which covered those wars, played a significant role in amplifying these ideas," Landler wrote.

"While Mr Biden may have antagonized foreign policy elites, his determination to extricate the United States from costly entanglements overseas plays better with average Americans," he wrote, adding that "polls suggest that many, if not most, share his conviction that the country does not have a compelling reason to stay in Afghanistan".

Still, that outlook also will be tempered by the fact that 13 US service members — all but one in their 20s — were killed in a suicide bombing last week at the Kabul airport, where scenes of desperation unfolded relentlessly for two weeks.

The president also faces raw anger from the families of the fallen troops, some of whom have publicly chastised him. In addition to the Gold Star families, there are the many troops who served in the 20-year war, some of whom were maimed and also are dealing with psychological traumas from the war. Many are questioning if their effort was for naught.

There also is another potentially dramatic issue of whether the estimated 200 Americans left behind in the war-torn Asian country will make it out.

If harm were to befall any of them in the coming weeks, then the White House could have a new televised crisis on its hands.

Biden has pledged that any American who wanted to leave Afghanistan would be given the opportunity to do so. In a blunt speech on Tuesday summarizing the withdrawal, he said 90 percent of Americans who wanted to leave were able to.

That becomes problematic for the 10 percent who weren't able to.

General Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command, said Monday that some Americans tried to get to the Kabul airport for the final evacuations but couldn't. No Americans were on the last five jets to leave.

"We maintained the ability to bring them in up until immediately before departure, but we were not able to bring any Americans out," he said. "That activity ended probably about 12 hours before our exit, although we continue the outreach and would have been prepared to bring them on until the very last minute. But none of them made it to the airport."

The Associated Press, in a "fact check" story Tuesday wrote: "For the record, Biden vowed that he would get 100 percent of Americans out before withdrawing forces. And his suggestions Tuesday that many of the remaining Americans are dual nationals who may be undecided about leaving do not reflect the full reality."

The fate of those remaining Americans likely will be left to diplomatic efforts.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.