Biden’s Misleading Parallel Between Syria and Afghanistan

He says the killing of ISIS leader Maher al Agal in Syria shows that over-the-horizon counterterror works, but it ignores key differences between the two countries.

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On July 12, a U.S. airstrike in northwest Syria killed the leader of ISIS in Syria, Maher al Agal, and seriously injured another senior leader. The strike is the latest blow against ISIS, which is under significant pressure from U.S., Iraqi, Syrian, and Turkish counterterrorism operations. At least five top leaders have been captured or killed since October 2021, whittling away at the core cadre. President Biden’s statement on the operation rightly praises the diligent work of the U.S. military and intelligence community in degrading ISIS capabilities. But he adds the strike “also demonstrates that the United States does not require thousands of troops in combat missions to identify and eliminate threats to our country.”

The problem, Mr. President, is that Syria is not Afghanistan.

America’s ability to target terrorists in Syria has never been in question, but nearly one year after the calamitous withdrawal, whether the United States can keep the terrorism threat from Afghanistan in check is. The veiled defense of the White House’s so-called “over-the-horizon” posture for Afghanistan ignores key differences between the two countries.

The over-the-horizon counterterrorism approach that the White House touts for Afghanistan replaces on-the-ground human networks with signals and satellite intelligence to know what terrorists are planning and where they are operating and relies on drone strikes instead of special forces to target terrorists. While U.S. capabilities are exquisite, the approach inherently makes counterterrorism operations more difficult. Afghanistan’s remoteness and the absence of any regional U.S. bases or robust counterterrorism partnerships adds to the challenge.

America’s presence and partners are crucial to its counterterrorism successes in Syria. Roughly 900 U.S. forces advise and support the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which formed to combat ISIS in 2015, in the northeast. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Defense for the Middle East Dana Stroul emphasized the role of U.S. partners on the ground in enabling strikes targeting ISIS in Syria. “What we’re doing today is we’ve achieved such an op-tempo of intelligence, which we turn into operations, which we cannot do without the SDF,” she said. “We cannot move, we cannot learn from the local community what they see, which informs the pace of our counterterrorism operations.”

The U.S. has a noncombat military presence, local partners, and regional basing to support operations in Syria. None of these exist in Afghanistan.

Unlike in Syria, the terror threat is trending the wrong way these days. The Islamic State has strengthened over the past year in Afghanistan as it leads an insurgency against the de facto Taliban government. The group’s reach has also expanded with recent attacks in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan, driven in part by the collapsing economy and the Taliban’s inability to govern, enlarge the Islamic State’s potential recruiting pool. Meanwhile, the Taliban’s current restrictions on al-Qaeda—minimal as they are—will probably loosen in the coming years. 

Though assessments still finger 2023 as the earliest for either terror group to be able to conduct transnational attacks targeting U.S. interests, the timeline for the U.S. generating any of the components to support robust counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan is much longer.

Geopolitical realities in Central Asia—namely, strong Russian influence—almost certainly preclude even limited basing. Yet deepening security relationships with Afghanistan’s neighbors could create opportunities for counterterrorism partnerships that would enrich U.S. intelligence on Afghanistan or help contain terror networks through better border security. Such relationships require sustained, senior-level engagements from the U.S. These are just beginning. The head of US Central Command, Gen. Erik Kurilla, toured Central Asian states on the heels of Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu in June.

To date, the U.S. military has not conducted a strike inside Afghanistan since the August withdrawal. The absence of action does not necessarily mean the United States has no intelligence on the threat. Inaction could be a decision, either to provide the Taliban space to act against the threat or to protect intelligence sources. Senior officials have rightly kept discussions on whether the U.S. has the targeting intelligence behind closed doors.

But what is clear is the over-the-horizon counterterrorism approach to Afghanistan is not comparable to Syria or anywhere in the world where the United States has targeted terrorists. Everywhere else, the US military has a limited presence, working directly with partners on the ground and using nearby drone basing to enable sustained counterterrorism pressure on al-Qaeda and Islamic State networks. While thousands of combat troops may not be necessary, the current over-the-horizon counterterrorism posture lacks the known ingredients for success in Afghanistan.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Rajeev

    "While thousands of combat troops may not be necessary, the current over-the-horizon counterterrorism posture lacks the known ingredients for success in Afghanistan."

    What are the ingredients for success in Afghanistan? It's hard to consider any part of our last 20 years a success in Afghanistan given the resources we put into the country. Our efforts to create a democratic leaning government and a military willing to fight for that government failed completely like it did in Syria. And now if we listed the most threatening countries hostile toward the USA I doubt Afghanistan would make the top 10 serious threats.

    We've also seen that having only a couple hundred troops isn't enough to have a significant footprint in the country much the less obtain occupying stability. This was evident when the Afghan army surrendered to the Taliban as soon as the US wasn't providing the air support.

    I imagine that the Biden administration has a lot more dangerous nations on its list of American enemies than a chaotic and relatively technology & financially wise primitive society.

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    1. Kevin

      While it is certainly true that we did not create an effective government, the Afghan Army did fight hard. The US went from over 100K US troops in 2011 down to between 12K and 14K from 2016 to 2019. During that time the Afghan Army suffered high casualty and fought the Taliban to a relative stalemate and US combat casualties fell to about 1 per month. The Afghan Army even held its own after the US negotiated a "peace agreement" with the Taliban without consulting the Afghan government, it did not collapse until the US completely abandoned them cutting off even logistical support.

      Time will tell which countries prove to be the most dangerous but it is not hard to imagine the US regretting our decisions in Afghanistan.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Rajeev

        But the Afghan Army only was able to fight the Taliban when they had US air support. Without it, even when their numbers outnumbered the enemy they folded instantly. So I never considered that effective as the enemy never had any air or logistical support. What it essentially told me is twenty years later could've been 40 years later and we would still need US troops to hold it. If an army folds at the first time it doesn't have air support then it essentially isn't really an army as even without the air support it would have an equipment and numbers advantage. But instead it folded so maybe withdrawal is actually the right decision instead of this facade of a Democratic protecting homegrown army.

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        1. Kevin

          Defeating an insurgency is difficult, especially one with a safe haven like the Taliban had in Pakistan and significant foreign support. The Taliban could choose where and when to attack in a country with incredibly difficult terrain to move around in. To counter those advantages, we trained the Afghan army to rely on drones for intelligence and helicopters for mobility and medivac. Even with our help, the Afghan Army was not winning but it also wasn’t losing. The Army fought bravely but in the end we were not supporting them for their benefit but for our own. For the first time since 9/11, Jihadist have a safe territory from which they can plan and train. I fear we may come to regret pulling our support out.

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          1. Avatar photo
            Rajeev

            Is this the first safe territory to plan and train? There are large pockets of Jihadists all over places in the world. They had already shifted to trying to recruit across the world rather tahn train locally. The Horn of Africa and South Asia appear to be two large areas of Jihadism that provide more area for terrorists to embed.

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  2. Avatar photo
    Dexember

    The line about waiting for the Taliban to move, made me pause. Some weak excuses if we are actually relying on internecine kinetic action between ISIS and the Taliban as our counter-terrorism.

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  3. Token Liberal

    We are friends with some recent arrivals from Afghanistan. They believe that the Taliban government will collapse under its own ineptitude. I'm not sure they're correct, but I hope they are.

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