The Biden administration is working feverishly to ensure the long-term security of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as combat troops leave Afghanistan later this summer, with analysts warning that failure to keep open a diplomatic outpost after two decades of war would be a foreign policy “disaster” of historic proportions.
With just three months until President Biden‘s Sept. 11 deadline for a full military withdrawal from Afghanistan, top Pentagon and State Department officials are still hashing out final plans to protect the embassy in Kabul from Taliban militants who are quickly capturing new territory and moving toward the capital. Beyond the threat of violence, the U.S. also faces the prospect of Afghan leaders striking a power-sharing deal with the Taliban, and that new government demanding that American diplomats pack their bags and leave.
Gen. Kenneth F. “Frank” McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, acknowledged this week that the American embassy will remain open as long as “we’re invited to be there.” He also stressed that he’s in direct consultation with the State Department to determine how much diplomatic security — in the form of U.S. Marines — will be needed in Kabul.
A State Department spokesperson said security at the embassy will be sufficient to “meet any particular threat.”
But there are major questions around the future of the embassy in Kabul. Regional analysts say that if a new government pushes the U.S. out, or if security conditions force the State Department to shutter the facility, America’s 20-year commitment to Afghanistan will have accomplished little.
“My personal view would be that if we come to a conclusion we can’t maintain a diplomatic presence in Kabul, that’s a disaster for the U.S.,” said Gerald M. Feierstein, senior vice president at the Middle East Institute and former U.S. ambassador to Yemen. “After 20 years of pretty extensive investment in trying to rebuild and to assist Afghanistan to develop as a modern country, if after all of that investment and all that effort and the loss of so many American lives in the struggle, we can’t even sustain a diplomatic presence in Kabul? Then that’s a complete disaster.”
Mr. Feierstein served as ambassador to Yemen from 2010 to 2013. By 2015, the U.S. was forced to close its embassy in the nation’s capital, Sanaa, amid a growing civil war between Iran-backed Houthi rebel forces and the Yemeni government, backed by Saudi Arabian forces.
Three years earlier, the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, came under attack by militant forces. Four American diplomats, including visiting Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, were killed in the incident, which led to immediate changes in how Washington protects its personnel abroad.
“We went from having seven or eight Marines to having well over 100 Marines who were posted there [at the embassy in Yemen] to provide security for the Embassy as well as the residential area where our staff was living,” Mr. Feierstein said in an interview. “It was a fairly significant change to what had been the U.S. approach for centuries.”
The embassy in Sana’a and the consulate in Benghazi certainly weren’t the first U.S. diplomatic facilities to come under threat. American diplomatic personnel fleeing the embassy were among those famously evacuated from the rooftop of a U.S. government building in Saigon in 1975 at the conclusion of the Vietnam War. Four years later, Iranian activists stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took dozens of hostages in an event that marked the beginning of the country’s Islamic revolution.
More recently, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad has come under rocket attack despite a significant security presence on site.
In Afghanistan, the Associated Press earlier this week cited anonymous administration officials saying that the Pentagon is eyeing a force of several hundred troops up to “a bit less than 1,000” for security missions inside the country.
Those missions include the protection of the Kabul embassy but also U.S. counterterrorism efforts. It’s unclear exactly how many American troops would be stationed at the embassy.
Specific information about diplomatic security has become much more restricted in the years since the Benghazi attack, though the State Department stresses that the Kabul facility will be safe.
“Ensuring the safety and security of U.S. diplomats and personnel is our top priority and the United States is committed to maintaining a robust diplomatic presence in Kabul through the U.S. Embassy,” a State Department spokesperson told The Washington Times. “While we cannot comment on specific measures, the security at each and every diplomatic facility worldwide is constantly assessed based on a variety of factors, with resources allocated to ensure our personnel are well positioned to meet any particular threat.”
As is the case at diplomatic facilities around the world, U.S. Marine Security Guards will work with the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security to guard the Kabul complex.
‘At that point, you have to leave’
But U.S. troops are just one part of the equation.
Pentagon officials stress that the Afghan government and its security forces bear much of the burden for guarding foreign diplomats in their country.
“The protection of any diplomatic mission in any country is first and foremost the responsibility of the host nation. So we won’t be there unless we’re invited to be there,” Gen. McKenzie told reporters on a conference call earlier this week. “We do plan to have an embassy in Afghanistan, it will be at the invitation of the government of Afghanistan, and it will be first — and most important — their responsibility to protect that embassy, although we will always take whatever measures are necessary to protect our diplomats in any embassy anywhere in the world.”
Questions about the future of the U.S. Embassy have swirled since Mr. Biden announced the U.S. military withdrawal two months ago. During a speech on the chamber floor last month, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell rattled off a list of questions that critics say still haven’t been answered even as the withdrawal approaches its final stage.
“How many forces will be required to secure our embassy? If a pro-Taliban mob threatens to overrun it, what will we do to protect it? Where will a quick-reaction force be based, if not in Afghanistan? Will it be quick?” the Kentucky Republican said. “The reality is, they don’t know.”
Administration officials forcefully push back on the notion that there’s no plan. Mr. Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and a host of other administration officials have vowed that the U.S. will maintain a well-protected diplomatic complex in Kabul that will serve as a symbol of the American-Afghan partnership. Should the security situation in Kabul rapidly deteriorate, the State Department and Defense Department are constantly developing “integrated crisis response options” to protect diplomats, a State Department spokesperson said.
But despite the administration‘s best efforts, there are serious questions about the reliability and willingness of Afghan troops to aid in the protection of the embassy. The Taliban has boasted in recent weeks of hundreds of Afghan forces abandoning their posts and joining the insurgent movement. While many of those accounts have not been independently verified, it certainly seems that the Taliban is gaining momentum and growing its ranks as it captures territory across the country.
Even if the embassy in Kabul isn’t under immediate threat, Mr. Feierstein said the State Department and Pentagon must constantly assess whether Afghan troops are willing and capable to defend it from attack.
In Yemen, “we made the decision we needed to close the embassy because at that point the Houthis had come into Sanaa … and it was our assessment that the authorities in control in Sana’a were neither capable nor did they have the political will to provide protection for the embassy,” he said.
“That will be the daily evaluation that the embassy is going to be making about their situation,” Mr. Feierstein said. “Even if you have 100 Marines, if the host government is not willing to provide security, then you don’t have a viable security situation. And at that point you have to leave.”