Biden administration believes horrifying images from Kabul will INCREASE support for his decision to pull out troops and the political fallout will be 'limited' - as Republicans sense an opportunity

President Joe Biden is taking a gamble that criticism of his Afghan withdrawal will fade quickly, limiting the political damage, even as Republicans see a humiliating capitulation as their key to retaking the House next year.

Biden and his officials insist they are handling the evacuation from Kabul as well as could be expected, given the rapid collapse of Afghan security forces and the unexpected Taliban takeover. 

And they believe polling reflects the overwhelming public support for ending America's longest running war.

But Republicans sense an opportunity in next year's midterms. 

'It's true that voters don't decide their vote on foreign policy,' said a senior GOP strategist speaking on condition of anonymity while Americans remained in danger in Kabul.

'This though is the sort of national humiliation that will mean we win back the House next year.' 

President Biden defended his handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in a speech last week and allies think horrific images from Kabul of people falling from planes will quickly fade from public memory, limiting the political damage

But Republicans think scenes of chaos at Kabul airport - where a baby was passed over razor wire to American troops this week, will give them a chance to win back the House in midterms

Afghans crowd around an entrance to the military part of Hamid Karzai International Airport, where international forces are trying to evacuate foreign nationals and vulnerable Afghans

The White House strategy is based on internal and public polling that shows the Afghanistan withdrawal had been by far the most popular decision Biden has made, even though the issue was not central for most voters.

'The public opinion is pretty damn clear that Americans wanted out of the ongoing war and don't want to get back in. It's true today and it's going to be true in six months,' said one Biden ally. 

'It isn't about not caring or being empathetic about what's going on over there but worrying about what's happening in America.'

Biden has faced a withering barrage of criticism from opponents as well as a constant stream of concerns from fellow Democrats for his handling of the crisis. 

For a week, television news has been filled with images first of Taliban flags being raised over towns where American lives were lost during the 20 year war, and then with video of horrific scenes at Kabul airport where thousands of Afghans thronged in search of safety.  

For much of that time, Biden remained out of sight at Camp David. 

When he returned to the White House briefly on Monday to address the crisis, he was accused of failing to acknowledge the shambolic nature of the withdrawal.

Critics of Biden used a picture of him sitting alone in a Camp David conference room to suggest that he was out of touch amid a national security crisis

After delivering his speech on Monday, Biden returned to Camp David. He came back to Washington again on Tuesday but is due to fly to his Delaware home on Friday

A boy is processed through an Evacuee Control Checkpoint during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 18.

Senior Obama White House adviser David Axelrod told CNN: 'You cannot defend the execution. This has been a disaster.' 

At other times he has sounded out of touch. In an interview with ABC News, he snapped when questioned about images of Afghans falling to their death from U.S. transport planes.

'That was four days ago, five days ago,' he said, even though the video emerged two days earlier. 

And he was condemned for claiming that the chaos was inevitable. 

'The idea that somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens,' Biden told ABC News on Wednesday. 

'There is no good time to leave Afghanistan. Fifteen years ago would've been a problem, 15 years from now. 

'The basic choice is am I going to send your sons and your daughters to war in Afghanistan in perpetuity?'

At the same time, a string of opinion polls showed the president's popularity plunging to its lowest levels so far. 

A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken on Monday found that 46 percent of American adults approved of his performance in office, a drop of seven points in a week. It was followed by other surveys with similar findings. 

But White House officials believe Americans' horror over graphic images of the chaos in Kabul and pleas from Afghans who fear they will be killed by the Taliban will morph into support for the president's decision to pull troops from the country by Aug. 31 after a 20-year war.

Helicopters flying over the U.S. embassy in Kabul to evacuate staff prompted headlines that this was Biden's 'fall of Saigon moment'

U.S. soldiers and marines have secured part of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul to assist evacuation efforts. But Americans in the city say they dare not risk Taliban checkpoints and cannot get to the airport

They expect the Afghanistan story to recede from the headlines, replaced by the resurgence in COVID-19 cases, the economic recovery and other issues, people familiar with the matter said.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment.

Biden aides honed talking points weeks ago to be used even in the worst-case scenarios of a withdrawal, some of which have come to pass, including emphasizing that leaving Afghanistan was the right decision.

In recent days, Biden has also assailed the Afghan military for refusing to fight, denounced the now-ousted Afghan government and declared he inherited a bad withdrawal agreement from his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump.

The strategy has obvious risks, political experts say. 

'The concern is that it's going to undercut his credibility as commander in chief,' said Jim Manley, once a top aide to former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. 

'If the Taliban revert to what they've done in the past, and I assume that's going to be the case, it's going to be a lot of bad images coming out of that country.'

The Afghanistan messaging is increasingly at odds with an emerging consensus within the administration that the White House, Defense and State departments as well as the U.S. intelligence community's planning for the current situation was inadequate and needs to be fully reviewed once the mission of evacuating key people from Afghanistan is complete and the 5,200 U.S. troops now in Kabul are gone.

'We're at the Pentagon and even we know it could have been better,' said one official. 'A lot better.' 

Members of the U.S. Congress also plan to investigate what went wrong.

Public opinion, at least for now, is mixed. While Biden's ratings have fallen, a majority of both Republican and Democratic voters say the swift capitulation of the Afghan government was 'evidence why the U.S. should get out of the conflict.'

The Reuters/Ipsos poll this week found that 31% of American adults agreed that the United States should continue its military operations in Afghanistan, up from the 25% who felt the same way in a 2012 poll.

Yet Ipsos polling conducted on Monday also showed fewer than half of Americans liked the way Biden had steered the U.S. military and diplomatic effort in Afghanistan this year. They currently rate his performance worse than the other three presidents who presided over the United States' longest war, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Trump.

Republicans, including Trump, have seized the opportunity to weaponize the withdrawal as an issue to undermine faith in Biden as commander in chief.

The former president has repeatedly said he would have withdrawn U.S. civilians before completing the drawdown of troops.

'Leaving Americans behind for death is an unforgivable dereliction of duty, which will go down in infamy,' he said in an emailed statement on Friday.

Most Democrats are likely to embrace public support of the withdrawal decision, and the issue should die down before the November 2022 congressional elections, said one adviser working on Democratic congressional campaigns.

She added, however: 'The Biden administration will likely have to defend every negative headline that comes out of Afghanistan during his tenure, so that is a real unknown.'