Biden administration ‘wants Afghanistan to go away,’ former US ambassador says

A former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan believes the Biden administration is hoping the country would simply “go away.”

Ryan Crocker, who served in the position from July 2011 through July 2012, argued on Thursday that the administration simply wants to “get it off the radar” due to the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the tens of thousands of Afghan allies who still remain in the country at risk under the Taliban regime.

“This administration, starting with the president, just wants Afghanistan to go away. After the chaotic withdrawal of two years ago, just get it off the radar,” he said. “So, frankly, you can’t expect that any senior administration official is going to be going up to Capitol Hill anytime soon to lobby Congress for more resources and more support. They just don’t want to hear the word ‘Afghanistan.'”

He added: “Recognizing again, it’s a hard truth and I wish it otherwise, that this administration is not going to exert a lot of time and effort up up on the Hill to do more for Afghans who need our help, since they’re the ones who got them into this mess in the first place with the withdrawal.”

Tens of thousands of SIV applicants were left behind when the U.S. withdrew its troops in late August 2021. While the State Department dedicated more resources to the program and attempted to streamline the process in early 2021, they were still unable to handle the astronomical increase in demand due to the Taliban’s takeover, the State Department inspector general’s office found in a recent report.

The backlog of principal Afghan special immigrant visas, which are visas that are available to Iraqis and Afghans who worked with U.S. forces during those wars, was up to nearly 155,000 by December 2022. That number, when including family members, was at 840,000 as of April 2023, roughly 20 months after the end of the war.

Crocker appeared alongside Gen. David Petraeus, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. commander, for an event put on by No One Left Behind, a charitable organization supporting Afghans and Iraqis who worked alongside U.S. troops during those wars.

NOLB Executive Director Mike Mitchell, Crocker, and Petraeus spoke at length about the importance of expanding the SIV program.

Given the administration’s inaction, Crocker explained, civilians need to reach out to their legislators to push them to remedy the crisis.

Congress has only approved the allocation of 38,500 principal visas since 2004, though their families can submit “derivative” visa applications, which are for a spouse or minor child of principal applicants. Only 15,377 of those visas were still available, according to the April 2023 Congressional Quarterly report.

The minuscule number of remaining visas compared with the number of applicants left in Afghanistan puts the onus on Congress to expand the program. Various pieces of legislation are in the works to aid the situation, but none have passed both chambers.

“All roads lead to Capitol Hill for the annual step in this process that authorizes additional SIVs, and if you don’t have the additional SIV allocations, all the other great work is for naught,” Petraeus added.