World Insights: U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan leaves mess for Europe to clean up

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by David Williams, Lin Jing

COPENHAGEN, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- The United States' hasty military withdrawal from Afghanistan and its refusal to extend the withdrawal deadline scheduled on Tuesday has left its European allies feeling dazed and betrayed as they are scrambling to depart the war-torn country with their own meagre resources.

Without a U.S. security guarantee during the evacuation, the U.S. allies are facing a chaotic situation at Kabul airport, the major exit for foreigners to leave the country. As the deadline is looming, many European countries had to halt their evacuation plans.

Meanwhile, concerns are surging over a possible flood of Afghan refugees into Europe after the U.S. military withdrawal, casting doubt over Europe's long-standing strategic dependence on the United States.

CHAOTIC WITHDRAWAL

On Sunday, six Afghan civilians, including four children, were killed after a rocket was fired at Kabul airport, where the U.S.-led evacuation flights were continuing, but the rocket failed to hit the target, a local source confirmed.

Earlier, a suicide bomb attack rocked the Kabul airport on Thursday, killing 13 U.S. service members and some 170 Afghans.

During a Group of Seven (G7) virtual summit on Tuesday, leaders of the U.S. allies tried to persuade U.S. President Joe Biden to extend the evacuation deadline.

However, despite the deteriorating situation and pleas from the allies, Biden has maintained his country still aims to complete its withdrawal by Aug. 31.

Without U.S. military support, the Europeans would not be able to evacuate their own personnel and local Afghan forces from Kabul, said Senior Policy Fellow Jana Puglierin at the European Council of Foreign Relations.

After the G7 meeting, German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted that without the U.S. security guarantee, they are facing difficulties to continue their withdrawal operations. According to German media, it is estimated that there are still over 200 German citizens in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, France halted its air evacuation operation in Afghanistan on Friday. French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that the U.S. decision not to extend the deadline for withdrawing from Afghanistan beyond Aug. 31 has put "all of us in a situation which is no more under control."

The Belgian federal government made a decision on Wednesday evening to end all evacuations from Kabul airport over a suicide bomb threat, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said Thursday.

"Clearly, the decision to leave Afghanistan on the part of the United States surprised many partners. We need to have a frank discussion," said the prime minister.

POSSIBLE REFUGEE CRISIS

According to the United Nations (UN) Refugee Agency, 550,000 people have been forcibly displaced inside Afghanistan this year, joining 2.9 million others already internally displaced across the country at the end of 2020, and 2.6 million Afghans have fled worldwide over the past decades.

European countries are worried about a possible influx of Afghan refugees as the hasty U.S. withdrawal will destabilize the region and push more people to flee.

In Greece, fear of a potential tsunami of refugees from Afghanistan is spreading. Greek Migration and Asylum Minister Notis Mitarachi said Friday that Greece will not become a gateway to Europe for irregular migration flows, like what happened during the period from 2015 to 2019.

Since 2015, over one million people have reached Greece fleeing warzones and extreme poverty, and most have continued their journey to other European countries until the borders along the Balkan route to Central Europe were sealed off.

"The Afghan crisis is creating new data in the geopolitical sphere and at the same time is creating possibilities for migration flows. We have to prepare ourselves for the possible consequences," Greek Minister of Civil Protection Michalis Chrisochoidis told national broadcaster ERT recently.

Last week, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan jointly urged the international community to provide more support to countries closer to Afghanistan to handle the crisis.

Meanwhile, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has declared that there will be no further admission of Afghans to Austria "under his chancellorship."

"The European Union (EU) must move very quickly and offer material and technical assistance where needed to ensure that people fleeing Afghanistan stay in neighboring countries with the prospect of returning to their homeland at some point," Constantinos Filis, executive director of the Institute of International Relations at Panteion University in Athens, told local news website Newsbeast.

CALL FOR STRATEGIC AUTONOMY

For European leaders, the fallout from the United States' hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan serves as a reminder that instead of blindly relying on the United States, they should seek some strategic autonomy.

In an exclusive interview with The Economist in November 2019, Macron was already predicting rumbling discontent with the U.S. leadership, describing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as "brain dead" and reiterating his demand for the development of "strategic autonomy" in Europe.

The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan is now a wake-up call that Europe needs to develop military capabilities independent of those of the United States, said Josep Borrell, the EU policy chief for foreign affairs and security.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto further reiterated the call for Europe to be able to do something in the absence of the United States as the EU's role in the Afghan crisis is "invisible."

"It is certainly necessary to discuss the role of Europe in the world. I have also personally insisted on the need for such a discussion," said Niinisto, adding that "to be able to deal with the growing power political pressures independently, Europe needs a force of its own."

Dissatisfaction with Europe's incompetence in Afghanistan also reared its head at German local news outlet NTV, which lashed out with a scathing commentary about the European forces and admonished Europe's dependence on the United States in Afghanistan.

"That the Europeans cannot achieve this despite decades of efforts to develop their own military strength, that too is a glaring sign of powerlessness," the article said.

However, some European leaders are shying away from a pan-European solution to ease the woes of humiliating impotency, and are advocating a reform of existing organizations like NATO instead.

In a recent interview with Blesk news website, Czech President Milos Zeman proposed that NATO needs to be radically reformed and at the same time should define international terrorism as its primary enemy, rather than being a service organization of the United States.

"We need a collective leadership of NATO, a certain equality of the member countries. Not that when some president gives an order, all the others obey it," he said. Enditem

(Xinhua reporters Ren Ke and Pan Geping in Brussels, Liu Fang and Tang Ji in Paris, Zhang Yuan in Berlin, Yu Shuaishuai in Athens, Yang Xiaohong in Prague, Zhu Haochen and Juhani Niinisto in Helsinki, and Patrick Ekstrand in Stockholm also contributed to the story.)

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