To defeat Trump, Harris must break with Biden on Afghanistan

Before the crisis in Gaza erupted last October, one foreign policy issue had already cost President Biden significant support across the political spectrum: America’s irresponsible and rushed exit from Afghanistan. 

It’s an issue that resonates with the millions of Americans touched by the shared mission in Afghanistan, including significant blocks of voters in swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Virginia, Wisconsin and North Carolina that have some of the country’s largest populations of veterans and blossoming Afghan-American communities.

After getting into office on an anti-Trump platform, Biden — driven by a deep and personal antipathy toward the war in Afghanistan — largely adopted former President Donald Trump’s approach to the conflict. Most notably, he followed through on the Trump administration’s ill-conceived agreement with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan with no credible assurances that its young democracy would survive and the Afghan people would remain safe. 

Between the two of them, Trump and Biden designed and executed a disastrous exit from Afghanistan that succeeded in removing U.S. troops from the country but failed to keep America’s word to Afghans — inflicting moral injury on hundreds of thousands of U.S. veterans and leaving nearly 40 million people living under one of the most regressive and dangerous regimes in the world. 

While nothing can undo the failures of the past, President Biden’s decision to end his bid for reelection has created a window for a reset on Afghanistan that could affect what comes next. 

Vice President Kamala Harris has an opening to do what the two men who wrote America’s regrettable final chapter in Afghanistan seemed unwilling to do in this presidential race or in a potential second term: Level with the American public about the war and ensure that Americans understand that our government — regardless of who’s leading it — has an obligation to keep the promises it made to Afghans. 

Harris must make clear her intention to keep those promises — to the vulnerable Afghans who have been evacuated, those who are still awaiting a path to safety and those who will remain in Afghanistan.

She should also do something that neither Trump nor Biden have shown much interest in doing:  Speak with some of the Afghans rebuilding their lives across the country in places like Northeast Philadelphia, Grand Rapids, Phoenix or Fredericksburg, Va., to understand how the war, the U.S. withdrawal and U.S. policies over the last several years in particular have impacted them.

She must also make clear how a Harris administration would ensure that these new Americans can be reunited with family members left behind and how her administration would create and maintain viable and safe legal pathways to the U.S. for other at-risk Afghans, including those who risked their lives in service of the joint U.S.-Afghan mission and have been in hiding for years waiting to be brought to safety.

Assuming it’s not passed before the election, she should also commit right now to signing Afghan Adjustment legislation that would provide a path to permanent safety for the Afghans resettled across the U.S. and currently in legal limbo.

Finally, Vice President Harris must also keep America’s promise to stand with the Afghan people by developing a robust and principled approach to dealing with the Taliban. While maintaining a commitment to providing robust humanitarian aid directly to the people of Afghanistan, she must break with President Biden’s policy of de facto normalization of relations with the Taliban and tacit acceptance of the fast-hardening state of gender apartheid facing women and girls in Afghanistan. 

For all their differences, Trump and Biden fell into the same trap of letting poor strategy overtake American values in their handling of Afghanistan. In the coming weeks, Harris has an opportunity to distinguish herself from Trump and to reckon with one of the most noxious policy decisions of the Biden presidency by signaling a willingness to do something neither man was up to doing on Afghanistan: the right thing. 

Joseph M. Azam is a lawyer, writer and policy advisor. He chairs the Board of the Afghan-American Foundation, a leading national policy advocacy organization focused on advancing the interests of Afghan-Americans. He also serves on the National Welcome Council for Welcome.Us and as an advisor to #AfghanEvac.