Politico | Deadlines burn Joe Biden
- White House’s August 31 withdrawal date for troops from Afghanistan in doubt amid chaos in Kabul
- Biden also missed his July 4 benchmark to vaccinate 70 per cent of American adults against Covid-19
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Christopher Cadelago and Natasha Korecki on politico.com on August 23, 2021.
The White House has been clear for weeks that there wouldn’t be a “mission accomplished moment” to end America’s longest war. But after initially pushing back the timeline to pull out of the country, the president had been adamant about marking the war’s end by a date certain: August 31. And it quickly became the latest example of how the White House’s devotion to deadlines can backfire.
“Deadlines serve a purpose. They are motivational. They bring focus,” said David Axelrod, a senior strategist for former president Barack Obama. “They also can be treacherous and hard to keep, especially in complex situations. And that can come back to bite you.”
Until last week, Biden’s Afghanistan policy had been defined as a rigid adherence to his withdrawal deadline. And that insistence opened him up to a wave of criticism for being both shortsighted and politically motivated – the withdrawal was timed to mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks that effectively triggered the war.
Biden’s resolve seemed to recede a bit on Sunday night when, in response to two consecutive questions about his August 31 deadline, he said his “hope” was to “not have to extend” it.
“But,” he added, “there are going to be discussions, I suspect about how far along we are in the process.” Administration officials point to the thousands of evacuations that have taken place in the past few days as an example of their agility.