AMAC Exclusive – By Andrew Abbott
Following the Biden administration’s disastrous evacuation from Afghanistan in August 2021, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken stated in a national address that “a new chapter of America’s engagement with Afghanistan has begun…The military mission is over. A new diplomatic mission has begun.” But as recent events in the country have made clear, that “diplomatic mission” can only be characterized as a complete and total failure – particularly for Afghan women, whom Biden specifically promised to protect.
While the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan was costly in both blood and treasure, it did result in dramatic advances in rights for women and girls in the country. For the first time, thanks to the American presence there, women were able to attend school, graduate with advanced degrees, hold political office, pursue careers, and live their lives in relative freedom.
Prior to U.S. military intervention in the country, public stoning, amputations, and executions of women were common. As it became clear that the Taliban would re-assert control over the country following the U.S. exit, a top concern was that this oppressive regime would return.
At the time of the U.S. exit, Biden promised that the U.S. would “continue to speak out for basic rights of the Afghan people, especially women and girls…I’ve been clear that human rights will be the center of our foreign policy.” In November 2021, all 24 female senators also sent a letter to Biden urging him to live up to that pledge. “You have committed to press the Taliban to uphold the rights of women and girls, and you have stated that America will maintain an enduring partnership with the people of Afghanistan resisting Taliban rule,” the letter states.
But sure enough, the Taliban soon began brutally rolling back the progress seen since 2001. In December, Taliban leadership announced that women could not attend school after age 12, could not work for most aid groups, and must be covered from head to toe while in public, along with other severe restrictions. Other accounts have emerged of women being exiled from their workplaces, forced into marriages, and confined to their homes. Rapes are common.
Yet despite clear promises to take action in the face of such reprehensible conduct, the administration has only responded with vague threats of “consequences” for the regime, even as they continue to ship billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the country. Meanwhile, congressional Democrats have gone conspicuously silent on the matter, apparently also abandoning Afghan women and girls to their plight.
Following the announcement of more repressive policies in December, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the administration was “discussing options,” but no concrete plan to address the treatment of Afghan women by the Taliban has yet emerged. Since the U.S. exit in 2021, the Biden administration has sent more than $1 billion to the country in aid – leverage that the White House could use to force changes in the country’s policies toward women.
Other Western countries are also continuing to send aid money to Afghanistan – accounting for up to 40% of the country’s GDP. Thus far, international bodies like the UN have also only offered “strong condemnation” of the Taliban’s actions, but no actual efforts to try and force policy changes.
The Taliban have threatened that any reduction in foreign aid would result in even worse conditions for women and children in the country. But sources within Afghanistan have reported that most of the aid money gets scooped up by the Taliban anyway, and have advised the West to use any means necessary to force the Taliban to change course.
The administration has received some pushback in the press, with Politico reporting, “Biden aides struggle to respond to Taliban’s latest curbs on women,” while The Washington Post ran the headline, “As Taliban erases women’s rights, Biden encounters limits of U.S. sway.” But such reports have been few and far between, and have largely failed to break through as national narratives.
Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress have failed to follow up on their promises to hold Biden accountable should Afghan women and girls experience the sort of oppression they are now clearly experiencing. California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, who co-led the Senate letter with Iowa Republican Joni Ernst, has been silent. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who previously expressed “deep concern” for Afghan women, has been similarly absent from the conversation.
House Republicans, meanwhile, have promised investigations into both the chaotic U.S. exit from Afghanistan and the administration’s diplomatic failures in the region thereafter. While such investigations are likely to be of little comfort to women and girls now suffering under the Taliban’s brutal rule, they may be the first step toward forcing some policy changes that might actually put pressure on the regime to respect basic human rights, as Biden promised more than one year ago. Once again, it seems, it will be up to the GOP to do their best to clean up the mess created by Biden and his hapless foreign policy team.
Andrew Abbott is the pen name of a writer and public affairs consultant with over a decade of experience in DC at the intersection of politics and culture.
