Last week we looked at yet another failure to plan ahead in terms of America’s exit from the war in Afghanistan. Our military is in search of a place close to that country where we could set up a long-term base of operations to keep an eye on things and potentially send forces back into Afghanistan if the situation requires it. The two leading candidates have been Uzbekistan or Tajikistan, but immediate concerns were raised over the possibility of Vladimir Putin vetoing the idea, given Russia’s heavy influence over those nations and the deteriorating state of relations between Moscow and Washington. In barely a week, it appears that the veto pen has been deployed. Despite American diplomats going on a “charm offensive” in the region, we’re getting the cold shoulder, and Putin has gone public with his rejection of the idea. (Associated Press)

American diplomats are escalating a charm offensive with Central Asian leaders this week as they work to secure a close-by spot to respond to any resurgence of outside militants in Afghanistan after the U.S. military withdraws.

But even as high-level U.S. diplomats head to the region, they’re meeting with more doubts from Afghanistan’s neighbors about any such security partnering with the United States. That stands in contrast to 2001, when Central Asian countries made available their territory for U.S. bases, troops and other access as America hit back for the 9/11 attacks plotted by al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

There’s distrust of the U.S. as a reliable long-term partner, after an only partly successful war in Afghanistan and after years of widely fluctuating U.S. engagement regionally and globally, former American diplomats say.

When asked about the prospect of an American base in either Uzbekistan or Tajikistan during a press conference this week, the Russian president simply said that such a proposal would be “unacceptable.” That was apparently all that the governments of those central Asian countries needed to hear. At this point, there are reportedly no offers on the table, despite the Biden administration dangling offers of foreign aid.

Meanwhile, the Taliban is not only retaking most of the country, but they’re acting as if they are already the legitimate government of Afghanistan. They’ve learned a lot about geopolitics over the course of the war and they’ve been sending representatives for talks in Moscow and all of their neighboring countries. They’re already setting up trade deals and promising “peace and stability” in the region once they finish ousting the current government in Kabul.

The foreign ministers of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan were in Washington last week at the invitation of the Biden administration, but the trip doesn’t appear to have produced any concrete results. It turns out that Uzbekistan passed a law forbidding the establishment of any military bases controlled by outside countries, so that’s entirely off the table. Also, the Uzbekis have reportedly been in talks with the Taliban about a deal to build a railroad through Afghanistan to the Black Sea for commercial purposes. What appears to be clear now is that everyone is already doing business with the Taliban and basically ignoring the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.

We surely must have known that establishing a base in the region was going to be part of the plan for a long time. How is it that we’re only just now trying to negotiate something when most of our troops are already out of the country? The lack of planning that has gone into this withdrawal is disappointing, to say the least. We can only hope that we don’t wind up paying for this lack of foresight with the blood of a lot of people.