When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a new investigation this week into the Biden administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, many on the right cheered.
After all, despite four previous inquiries conducted by the National Security Council, the State Department, US Central Command, and the GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee, no one in the Pentagon or in the military chain of command was fired or relieved for their role in the debacle.
Nor did any heads roll at the State Department or White House as a result of a botched evacuation that reminded Americans of the shameful fall of Saigon in 1975.
But Hegseth’s renewed search for “accountability,” as he put it, is a risky move — one that the Trump administration will be tempted to use as a political bludgeon against the president’s perceived enemies.
Heading that grievance list is retired Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former USCENTCOM commander Gen. Keith McKenzie. The new probe will likely focus on the decisions and advice made by both men.
Milley is already squarely in the crosshairs.
In January, Hegseth terminated Milley’s security detail and national security clearance — and ordered the Pentagon’s inspector general to conduct a review of Milley’s past decisions to decide if he should be demoted in rank.
The general’s public falling-out with Trump was headline news. In Bob Woodward’s latest book, Milley was quoted as calling the president “a fascist to the core” and saying “he is the most dangerous person ever [in America].”
Now, Milley could be facing a Pentagon court-martial — even though he’s immune from federal prosecution after receiving President Joe Biden’s preemptive pardon — and the new Afghanistan investigation’s findings will likely loom large in the evidence presented against him.
Milley has gone on record stating his regrets, saying “the whole thing was a strategic failure” and that “the fundamental mistake, fundamental flaw was the timing.”
Testifying before Congress in March 2024, Milley and McKenzie both said they advised Biden against ordering a complete withdrawal.
Yes, answers are needed. The families mourning the Abbey Gate suicide bombing that killed 13 American service members and 170 Afghan civilians deserve accountability.
Taxpayers have legitimate questions about the $7 billion worth of US military equipment abandoned there. And there are critical geostrategic lessons to be learned about the perils of hastily withdrawing US forces and support from hotspots around the world.
Yet we are unlikely to get any of that.
Rather, a November controversy in the US Senate offered a prelude of the likely politicization of what is to come.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a key Trump ally, slapped a promotion hold on Gen. Chris Donahue, the commander of US troops in Afghanistan at the time of the withdrawal, with an objection “directly related to Donahue’s role in Afghanistan.”
Donahue’s fourth star was eventually confirmed by unanimous Senate consent. But Mullin’s act put down a political marker that the incoming Trump administration views the Afghan withdrawal as unfinished business.
That makes Hegseth’s investigation a perilous exercise. After 3½ years, Donahue is the highest-ranking commander still serving.
If the investigation does become highly politicized or divisive, it risks paralyzing the Pentagon and US Combatant Commands at a pivotal moment in the Ukraine-Russia war — and in the shadow of China’s rapidly growing threat in the Indo-Pacific and to the Western Hemisphere.
Ditto facing down the challenges of Iran’s ever-accelerating efforts to achieve nuclear breakout.
During his Senate confirmation in January, Hegseth declared that “[Trump], like me, wants a Pentagon laser-focused on lethality, meritocracy, warfighting, accountability and readiness.”
That entails, he argued, a return to the “warrior ethos.”
The time to punish Milley and McKenzie has passed. Is taking away a star from either general — the likely result, if blame for the disaster can be assigned to them — really worth taking the entire military command structure down a political rabbit hole?
Arguably not — especially given Hegseth’s stated commitment to “trim[ming] the [Pentagon] bureaucracy and realloca[ting] resources to the warfighter.”
Now, more than ever, the Pentagon needs to be forward-thinking. Repeatedly revisiting failures from past administrations — particularly if they are, or are perceived to be, no more than political hit jobs — is self-defeating, and only adds to the Pentagon’s bureaucracy.
It could create a generation of risk-averse combatant commanders who fear future political retribution for their advice and decisions.
Yes, Pentagon accountability is key. But if Hegseth is smart, he will focus on future accountability — and that begins in Ukraine.
The outcome of that war — and any peace — is hanging in the balance, and strategically speaking will far outweigh Afghanistan.
Biden’s Afghan failure was largely a regional disaster. Trump’s loss in Ukraine would be a global one.
Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer. Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
