US forced to ask Russia for help

Joe Biden probably never envisioned a day when he might have to seek Vladimir Putin’s help to use Russian military bases in central Asia to deal with resurgent al-Qa’ida and Islamic State terrorism in Afghanistan. Yet that is what is occurring, and nothing better shows the extent to which Mr Biden’s precipitous withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan has affected the global battle against Islamist terrorism. With no US boots left on the ground in landlocked Afghanistan, and the nearest US military bases 1600km away in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, Mr Biden’s confident assertion after the Kabul debacle that America’s so-called “over-the-horizon military capability” would be more than enough to prevent another 9/11 terrorist onslaught being spawned in the Taliban-controlled country is being tested.

Concerns about the terrorist resurgence in Afghanistan led to an unprecedented meeting in Helsinki last month between America’s top soldier, General Mark Milley, and his Russian counterpart, General Valery Gerasimov. Remarkably, the possibility of the US using Russian military bases close to Afghanistan was discussed. The first of Mr Biden’s vaunted “over-the-horizon” drone strikes, at the height of the US retreat, was a disaster that killed the entire family – including seven children – of a respected local employee of a US aid organisation in Kabul. Few were surprised by this failure. Without up-to-the-minute intelligence on the ground and from surveillance flights, the risk in Afghanistan is that by the time the missile or drone arrives from Qatar or the UAE, the target has moved. With General Milley warning the US Senate this week that a “reconstituted” al-Qa’ida and Islamic State could launch attacks from Afghanistan as soon as within the next 12 months, the US military’s urgent need is clearly to be able to operate surveillance flights and launch drone strikes from bases much closer to Afghanistan. But, while it has no military bases nearby (even Pakistan, which has close ties to the Taliban, won’t help), Russia does – in two of Afghanistan’s immediate neighbours, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Hence General Milley’s meeting with General Gerasimov – an extraordinary move given that in 2017 the US congress passed legislation specifically prohibiting the use of funds to support US-Russia military co-operation unless and until Moscow removes the forces it sent into Ukraine in 2014 and illegally annexed Crimea. The move is, however, yet another telling sign of the extent to which Mr Biden has painted himself into a corner over Afghanistan by ignoring the advice of his top generals, including General Milley, to keep a force of around 2500 US soldiers in the country rather than stick to Donald Trump’s determination to pull them all out and open the door to the Taliban. Mr Biden denies he was given such advice. When he was asked last month whether the generals had told him keeping 2500 US troops in the country would prevent the collapse of the Afghan government, Mr Biden replied: “No, they didn’t. That wasn’t true. No one said that to me that I can recall.” In testimony to the US Senate, however, some of America’s most senior generals insisted that Mr Biden had indeed been told. Central Command chief General Frank McKenzie, whose responsibilities include Afghanistan, said: “I recommended that we maintain 2500 troops in Afghanistan.” He said he warned that “the withdrawal of those forces would inevitably lead to the collapse of the Afghan military forces and eventually the Afghan government”. Which is what happened.

The need to go cap in hand to seek Mr Putin’s help in dealing with a resurgent al-Qa’ida and ISIS adds yet another dimension to Mr Biden’s shameful lack of leadership in the crisis. He may insist he was doing no more than give effect to the complete withdrawal deal Mr Trump did with the Taliban in February last year. But this week’s US Senate evidence has left no doubt about Mr Biden’s own overwhelming responsibility for the misjudgment and lack of foresight that led to the debacle.