Biden can’t escape fallout from Afghanistan

Not ideal. Photographer: AFP/Getty/Bloomberg

I can't speak to the foreign-policy implications of the collapse of government forces in Afghanistan, or the consequences for the Afghan people. I can talk a little about what's at stake for President Joe Biden.

To begin with: It's very unlikely that there will be any direct public-opinion effect, and if there is it will almost certainly be short-lived. It's even less likely that the Taliban's resurgence will have any effect on the 2022 midterms, let alone the 2024 presidential election. Republicans may try to make "Who lost Afghanistan?" an election theme, but there's virtually no evidence that voters care about such things. Normally, the only thing in foreign policy and national security that seems to have an effect is when troops die in combat.

This doesn't mean that Biden has nothing at stake. A president's reputation affects how much influence he or she has. Biden brought some advantages with him to the White House in this regard; his experience, in the Senate and as vice president, almost certainly meant that most people were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt — something that Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump would have to (and often did not) earn.

The situation in Afghanistan puts Biden's reputation for foreign-policy expertise at risk. Indeed, it's not just the facts on the ground there that matter. Biden has consistently set expectations high, and has done very little to make a public case that the Afghan government's collapse was a risk worth taking. Given the strong chances that things would work out as they have, that seems like a real mistake.

There's more than that. One of the ways that presidents gain influence is by earning a reputation as a winner, and one of the ways they do that is, well, by having a string of wins. In some ways this is simple. The more people Biden deals with — in the executive branch, in Congress, in state and local governments, in the private sector, and more — think of Afghanistan as a fiasco, the less likely they are to assume that Biden will win future battles. And that will make them less likely to act accordingly.

That said, there were plenty of downside risks to other policy options as well. That Biden may have sold his choices badly matters, but it doesn't mean they weren't the least-bad decisions available. Indeed, if Biden was committed to pulling all US troops out of Afghanistan, it may be better for him to get it over with early in his presidency — and, to be blunt, perhaps he's better off having the government fall now, if it had to happen at some point.

All of this may sound cynical. But the job that Biden signed up for, as the political scientist Richard Neustadt explained long ago, requires a certain amount of cold calculation — specifically, about how to help his own political situation and expand his influence. Otherwise, the president can only fall back on the formal powers of the office, which aren't sufficient to get very much done. That's bad for the president, and also for the nation.

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. He taught political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and DePauw University and wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

Disclaimer: This article first appeared on Bloomberg, and is published by special syndication arrangement.