Joe Biden's Hubris

Gerard Baker has offered one of the better, concise analyses of what went wrong in Afghanistan, that is, in how the Biden administration snatched humiliation from the jaws of pride. Or some such.

Baker sees it in terms of hubris, a tragic flaw, an overweening arrogance that brings haughty men low. 

Twenty years ago, America fought a brief and successful military campaign to oust from power the people who had enabled a terrorist organization to kill as many American citizens as have ever died at the hands of a foreign power in a single day in the nation’s history. A month shy of two decades later, the U.S. pleaded with that same power not to harm its soldiers, its citizens and their allies as it scrambled to complete a chaotic and humiliating retreat that left that former enemy—and American adversaries everywhere—immeasurably stronger.

He continues, regarding Biden's vanity, which would be, in today’s parlance, his high self-esteem:

But as a lesson in the tragic cost of vanity, not much can top the spectacle we have witnessed in the past few weeks: an administration so steeped in self-belief, so driven by self-confidence, so disastrously misled by the vain order it imagined it could impose on the world; a hubris now paid for not in a high-level resignation or even an expression of contrition, but in the lives of American troops, lions again sacrificed to save the faces of the donkeys who lead them.

No one has taken responsibility. No one has been or will be held to account. Except perhaps a Marine lieutenant colonel, by name of Stuart Scheller, who was relieved of his command and sent off for a mental health evaluation, for committing the “crime” of asking his commanding officers to be held to account.

Note well, and the point deserves emphasis, refusing to accept the fact that leaders who fail should either apologize themselves or be held to account by others is considered a sign of mental illness. Where have we seen that before?

I will note, in passing, that after the Vietnam War, as I wrote in my book Saving Face, no one ever apologized. Is history repeating itself?

The Democratic Party media satraps covered for the Democratic politicians who gave us Vietnam. Thus, no apology, no accountability.

Baker emphasize Biden’s hubris:

Biden hubris is a perfect example of the genre: the team of strategic geniuses, lauded by their fellow so-called experts, by allies and above all by themselves, as the smartest guys in the room, the “grown-ups” back to clear up the mess left by those terrible naïfs who preceded them.

The people who implemented the policy were so confident of their brilliance that they could not imagine that anything could go wrong. And they certainly did not think that anyone would hold them to account.

Anyway, the Biden administration had already defined its real enemies, and they did not include Afghanistan or terrorism. The choice of enemies does not just reflect overweening arrogance; it bespeaks a fundamental cowardice, a refusal to compete or to enter the fray:

This will give you a sense of the priorities: The words “Afghanistan” and even “terrorism” don’t get a single mention, but “LGBTQ” gets three. The president solemnly enumerated the threats his administration would face down: climate change, pandemics and above all the menace to American democracy from political opponents at home, the scourge of white supremacy and systemic racism.

As we watch the spectacle unfold in Afghanistan—the alarming deterioration in American security it represents, the trashing of trust in America’s word, the potentially fatal undermining of allies and the appeasement of enemies, Mr. Biden’s words then produce only uncomprehending disdain now.

Surely, these empty headed self-important vainglorious commanders should be held to account. Don’t hold your breath:

But as the Biden geniuses pick through the wreckage of what they have achieved, they—and all of us—should remember with trepidation this lesson from history: It’s not only the gods who punish arrogance and vanity.