A year after the Taliban takeover, Afghans who failed to get on evacuation flights say they are still struggling to find safe and legal ways out of the country. AP
A year after the Taliban takeover, Afghans who failed to get on evacuation flights say they are still struggling to find safe and legal ways out of the country. AP
A year after the Taliban takeover, Afghans who failed to get on evacuation flights say they are still struggling to find safe and legal ways out of the country. AP
A year after the Taliban takeover, Afghans who failed to get on evacuation flights say they are still struggling to find safe and legal ways out of the country. AP

A year on, Afghanistan withdrawal becomes campaign issue in US midterms


Ellie Sennett
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A year after the last US soldier left Afghanistan, Republicans and Democrats are seeking to capitalise on the end of America's longest war to suit party interests before the midterm elections.

Mr Biden's decision to pull US forces from Afghanistan after 20 years of western intervention sparked an indelible series of events that came to define his early presidency.

They included the Taliban takeover of Kabul, the ensuing chaos at the capital's airport, and an ISIS attack that killed 13 US troops and scores of Afghans.

Republicans have used such scenes to depict the Biden administration as reckless, and as a rallying point for campaign fundraising in November's midterms that will serve as a Litmus test for White House popularity.

The US House and Senate could both flip from Democratic to Republican-controlled in midterm elections. Source: Cook Political Report
The US House and Senate could both flip from Democratic to Republican-controlled in midterm elections. Source: Cook Political Report

Marking the anniversary of the US withdrawal on August 31, 2021, House Republicans said Mr Biden's "catastrophic failure in leadership is to blame for the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan".

"In a new Republican House majority, we will leave no stone unturned in our effort to provide oversight on this deadly withdrawal and honour the 13 brave service members who lost their lives serving our country," they said.

Republicans increased pressure on the administration when the House foreign affairs committee released a minority report detailing how the government misled the American public as the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorated.

The report said the administration rebuffed offers of help from Pakistan and made “minimal effort” to quickly help thousands of Afghans.

Republicans have invested heavily in social media campaigns to push their message.

Since August 2021, thousands of Facebook "issues, elections or politics" advertisements have highlighted the Afghanistan withdrawal, data from Facebook's parent company Meta showed.

That includes an ad from House minority leader Kevin McCarthy's page on “Biden’s Afghanistan lies”, which encouraged users to “rate” Mr Biden.

The ad's link leads to WinRed, the Republicans’ online fundraising platform.

Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, flanked by other Republican legislators, prepares to speak on President Joe Biden's first year in office on January 20. EPA
Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, flanked by other Republican legislators, prepares to speak on President Joe Biden's first year in office on January 20. EPA

One of the ads with the most engagement is from the National Republican Congressional Committee demanding that Mr Biden "resign in disgrace" over the withdrawal.

Meta analytics showed the ad's estimated audience size is between 500,000 and one million viewers — most of them in key swing-states Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania.

Republican candidates are also using the Afghanistan issue in more direct political contacts.

JD Vance, a Trump-backed Senate candidate in Ohio, sent emails to supporters with a poll question: “Do you think Joe Biden handled the situation in Afghanistan horribly?”

Democrats, meanwhile, are pushing their own message, saying Mr Biden did what had to be done.

VoteVets, a Democratic-aligned political action group of US veterans, said ending the war was the right call after former president Donald Trump's 2020 deal with the Taliban.

"Republicans have no credibility on this," Jon Soltz, Iraq war veteran and chairman of VoteVets, told The National.

"It was their president who ceded to the Taliban with a deal that shut out the democratically elected government in Afghanistan. A smarter, more competent administration would never have done that

"We’d be better off if they stopped creating huge messes that Democratic presidents were left to clean up."

In an August 2021 Pew Research poll, 54 per cent of US adults surveyed said the decision to withdraw was the right one, while 42 per cent said it was wrong.

"Voters are still very supportive of us ending the war," Mr Soltz said. "The ones who are out of tune with voters are the ones who said we should have just stayed there and kept fighting the war."

When Mr Biden announced his decision last year, he pitched that ending the war in Afghanistan would save American lives and tax dollars.

"I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome," he said.

Democrats are pushing hard on that messaging.

Democratic chairman of the House armed services committee, Adam Smith, took to right-wing Fox News this week to plead the administration's case.

"Twenty years of effort by four different presidents and more generals and diplomats than most of us can now remember make it clear that this is not the case," Mr Smith wrote in an opinion piece for Fox.

"If we had stayed, we would have simply lost more American lives and spent more money — only to wind up in the same place five, 10 or 20 years from now."

Adam Smith greets Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen Mark Milley after a House armed services committee hearing on Afghanistan. AP
Adam Smith greets Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen Mark Milley after a House armed services committee hearing on Afghanistan. AP

Foreign policy has rarely affected US elections, but the consistently high polling numbers for citizens with an opinion on Afghanistan are a stand-out against other international issues.

Although most Americans agreed with the withdrawal, Pew Research polling suggested a large majority also thought the Biden administration handled it poorly.

In August and September 2021, about 70 per cent or more said that the administration had done only a fair or poor job ending the war.

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

Updated: August 30, 2022, 11:45 PM