Former Obama adviser condemns Afghanistan withdrawal as a 'Trump-style process'

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

published 18 August 2021

As the United States' chaotic and tragic Afghanistan withdrawal continues, Brett Bruen, a former U.S. diplomat and ex-director for global engagement at the National Security Council, called out the haphazard exit operation as one harkening back to the previous administration.

America's withdrawal has been a "Trump-style process which we expected [the NSC] to avoid," Bruen told The Independent. He attributed the fallout to a "dearth of institutional expertise" at the NSC, which he said is what happens when "you put a bunch of political appointees into positions where you ought to have those with recent relevant experience advising the president." "They're not in the room," he claimed. "They're not being heard."

The "packed" National Security Council is therefore full of "people all cut from the same cloth," Bruen purported. It's a mistake he said both Biden and other recent administrations have made. "They drink too much of the same Kool-Aid, and then they wonder why things go wrong." Read more at The Independent.

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Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.