Should Israel Listen to the Americans Who Botched the Afghanistan Withdrawal?

Would you buy a used car from this crowd, much less take military advice? The White House and Department of State, which according to America’s top retired generals bungled the Afghanistan evacuation less than three years ago, are now attempting to micromanage Israel’s Gaza war. The military men who oversaw 2021’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan — a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, and the ex-commander of Mideast forces, General Kenneth McKenzie — told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday that President Biden’s team ignored their advice, which led to catastrophic results. Next week, Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, and a top aide to Prime Minister Netanyahu, Ron Dermer, will arrive at Washington to discuss the Gaza war with their administration’s counterparts. The White House and state department teams that invited them will reportedly present alternative ideas to Israel’s planned military operation at Rafah. The White House war-planning consultations will reportedly include no military officials. Fearing that the administration’s objections to that operation would result in cuts of arms deliveries to Israel, the defense minister, Yoav Gallant, will travel to Washington separately for meetings with his American counterpart, Lloyd Austin. Will Washington’s stripe-pants set and national security team do better overseeing Israel’s Gaza war than they did in managing the Kabul disaster? Mr. Biden contends that before the Afghanistan evacuation no one advised him to leave behind 2,500 troops or keep control over the Kabul airport. Yet, on Tuesday General McKenzie told the committee that the military brass did urge the White House to do so. “I participated in meetings at the very highest level where I expressed” that opinion, he said, “and it was heard.”A state department plan to evacuate civilians from the country “came too late,” General Milley said. The August 2021 events were “the direct result of delaying the initiation of the nonessential evacuation orders for several months,” General McKenzie added. A messy operation ensued. Thirteen U.S. service members and at least 170 Afghans were killed at the Kabul airport’s Abbey gate. American citizens and Afghans who had cooperated with America remained in the country, and the Taliban now seek to kill them. “I’ll be candid, I don’t know the exact number of Americans that were left behind, because the starting number was never clear,” General Milley said. “Accountability ensures mistakes of the past are not repeated,” the House committee chairman, Representative Mike McCaul, said, adding, though, “from where I sit, the president and this administration refused to acknowledge their failures.”Instead, Mr. Biden and his teams, led by National Security Adviser Jacob Sullivan and Secretary Blinken, are now attempting to dictate to Israel how to run the Gaza war. Mr. Blinken will travel to Israel on Friday.Mr. Netanyahu often recalls that even after the Biden administration had warned him against a ground invasion of Gaza, the Israel Defense Force succeeded there. It achieved victory in other operations Washington cautioned against, including against Hamas lairs inside Gaza hospitals. “At the start of the war, I told the president there is no way to defeat Hamas unless the IDF enters Gaza,” Mr. Netanyahu said Wednesday. “In our most recent conversation, I told him there is no way to complete victory unless the IDF enters Rafah, and that will happen now too.” Yet, he added, “it would take some time” before the Rafah operation takes place. The delay has to do with plans to remove from the combat zone more than a million non-Hamas Gazans who are sheltering in the Rafah area. The Biden administration seems less interested in victory over Hamas than in preventing what it fears would lead to a humanitarian catastrophe. Mr. Biden reportedly said that a large IDF operation at Rafah would be a “red line” for him. Following widely publicized clashes over Rafah between Washington and Jerusalem, “the White House realized it is not enough to tell the Israelis what not to do but there is also a need to present a U.S. alternative,” Axios reports. “In recent days several alternatives to an immediate Israeli ground invasion of Rafah have been discussed inside the administration.”Such ideas are cooked up by officials who are as concerned about domestic politics as about geostrategy. Rushing the Kabul evacuation was dictated by Mr. Biden’s campaign vow to end the war on its 20th anniversary. America’s retreat from fully supporting the war against Hamas is at least partially influenced by anti-Israel constituents in states that could determine Mr. Biden’s re-election prospects.The Afghanistan debacle severely dimmed America’s can-do image and damaged its status as top world power. Adversaries were emboldened and global wars proliferated. A beleaguered ally’s victory in Gaza could begin to repair the damage.

Should Israel Listen to the Americans Who Botched the Afghanistan Withdrawal?

Should Israel Listen to the Americans Who Botched the Afghanistan Withdrawal?

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