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EXPERT COMMENT

Washington has descended into a high-stakes debate about the causes of the humanitarian crisis unleashed by the decision to take US troops out of Afghanistan.

The urgent humanitarian crisis unfolding in Afghanistan is of the utmost priority, so getting distracted by a blame game risks a dire situation getting worse and further undermines the credibility of the US and European commitment to protecting democracy and human rights.

Since Kabul fell to the Taliban, the ground for political debate has been moving quickly – the ‘first order’ debate about whether the US should have stayed in Afghanistan already feels remote, and now the search is on to understand the US failure to predict the Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan.

Claims are widespread that senior State Department officials were warned Kabul could collapse if US troops withdrew and that the CIA provided evidence of the Taliban’s growing strength – all providing fodder to partisan division.

Republican senators are taking aim at Democratic opponents which is further fuelling the conservative media’s assault on the Biden administration – an unfortunate political reality. But voters are also split along partisan lines with polling showing 69 per cent of Democrats but only 31 per cent of Republicans supporting the withdrawal.

Click here to continue reading the full version of this Expert Comment on the Chatham House website.