“This is clearly not Saigon,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken exclaimed on Sundays at last weekend’s gatherings, trying to spin the inexplicably poorly executed retreat of his boss to Afghanistan. While Americans watched as the most embarrassing foreign policy debate in national history took place, Blinken’s chivalrous claim turned out to be a lie.
The fact that Blinken promoted such an obviously false view as a point of television conversation approved by the administration only underscored that there was nothing more to say. The American people saw for themselves the hasty helicopter evacuations of the U.S. embassy and the Taliban jihadists marched on the presidential palace in Kabul.
To borrow from human rights lawyer Kimberley Motley, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the situation is more like “Saigon on steroids.”
Blinken was not only wrong in comparing Saigon, but he was horribly and unquestionably wrong in everything related to the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Given the strong geopolitical commitment here and given the indispensable role of the Secretary of State as the President’s effective adviser on foreign policy, Blinken should resign.
The Secretary of State, of course, is not just the greatest sage of U.S. foreign policy. He also runs our network of global embassies, which means Blinken is ultimately responsible for having no plans to safely evacuate Uncle Joe’s ideologically driven artificial withdrawal period.
Blinken and his boss are also to blame for the fact that more than 10,000 American citizens remain trapped at a time when the special section “Evacuation of Afghanistan” on the site of the Office of Consular Affairs states pathetically: “The US government cannot guarantee a safe passage to the airport.”
The dollar stops with our commander-in-chief, but the Blinken State Department also independently failed this unfortunate withdrawal.
Blinken, following the directions of his boss, has generally been missing in action after last weekend’s unfortunate tour of Sunday gatherings. Blinken admitted that the Taliban recaptured Afghanistan more quickly and easily than expected after the withdrawal from the United States. Well, whose fault is it, exactly?
Finally, it was recently revealed that a State Department internal note circulating last month warned senior Foggy Bottom officials about the possible imminent collapse of Kabul following the US withdrawal.
It appears that Blinken has reviewed this missive and has chosen to ignore it.
Resign, Tony.
Josh Hammer is an opinion editor for Newsweek and a researcher at the Edmund Burke Foundation. Twitter: @josh_hammer.