A former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan said he doubts President Joe Biden’s ability to lead the country after the Taliban seized control of Kabul, The Spokesman-Review reported.
“I’m left with some grave questions in my mind about his ability to lead our nation as commander-in-chief,” Ryan Crocker told The Spokesman-Review. “To have read this so wrong – or, even worse, to have understood what was likely to happen and not care,” he explained. Crocker served as ambassador to Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012 under then-President Barack Obama’s administration, and as an ambassador to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait and Lebanon, The Spokesman-Review noted. (RELATED: Trey Yingst: Taliban Propaganda Will Declare Victory Over ‘Americans Who Were In Afghanistan For 20 Years’)
Obama-era Afghanistan ambassador on Biden: “I’m left with some grave questions in my mind about his ability to lead our nation as commander-in-chief” https://t.co/ILTskUU9qg
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) August 16, 2021
“I think the direction was predictable; the trajectory was not,” Crocker told the outlet. “What President Biden has done is to embrace the Afghan policy of President Trump, and this is the outcome.”
After Biden announced in April he would remove U.S. troops in Afghanistan by Sept. 11, two alleged al-Qaida operatives told CNN that the “war against the U.S. will be continuing on all other fronts unless they are expelled from the Islamic world.” Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham warned in April that removing troops from Afghanistan as a symbolic gesture could cause another 9/11-style tragedy.
After the Taliban swept through Afghanistan and into Kabul, Biden announced Sunday that he would deploy an additional 1,000 troops to the capital city to help with evacuating American personnel.