Is it impossible to avoid criticism and stress when a lot of people want the same thing at once?

I agree with you. It’s very likely that the Afghanistan withdrawal could have been planned better but I believe it ultimately had to be done and would be very likely messy. It’s easy to be critical of systems when you’re not the one in charge. I do feel we have a responsibility to help Afghan refugees as much as possible.

As to your larger point, yes, change brings both stress and criticism.

It is impossible to avoid criticism and stress when everybody in the world just LOVES to play the blame game!

I think of the three examples you gave, Afghanistan, Covid vaccines, and work place decisions, the stress and frustrations come from different triggers. There are many things that trigger stress in people and bring on criticisms.
In the Afghanistan example, people criticized Biden because he had no plan at all. He just decided he was going to pull out all the troops with nothing in place. He gave up billions of dollars in military equipment to the Taliban. He put people’s lives at risk. So the criticism is for his performance and the actual and potential impact on people and on the world.
In the vaccine example, people’s lives were being upended for a whole year. And then we saw vaccines coming out and were told they were a panacea. So people wanted to get them to protect themselves and to get their lives back. Then they were told there weren’t enough vaccine doses available and they had to be metered out. So people are now being offered something and then having it held back. That alone will cause frustration and bring on criticism for how the whole thing was rolled out.
On the work place policy changes, not knowing what the actual change was but knowing today’s business world, it was probably a policy that would either change the work load or the pay/benefits of the workers. When you work for a company and they start taking things away from you year after year or when they start demanding more work from you or if they put more roadblocks in your way, it makes you feel like you are footing the bill for the upper echelon to get their bonuses. So you complain about the impact on your life and blame the “execs” for screwing you.

The question seems to refer to someone in a position of authority in a decision-making capacity. Anyone in such a position is bound to receive criticism, especially when making decisions affecting many people. Some level of stress is inevitable since the task brings with it a great deal of responsibility. It’s unlikely that person will avoid criticism or stress.

Your explanation of the question veers off into individual expectations. Generally speaking, most people are “armchair quarterbacks”. Everybody knows what everybody else should be doing or should have done. The only criticism involved they bring to the table. Whatever stress involved they create for themselves.

My time in the Navy taught me a very useful concept…the need to know. Crew members were only allowed access to information needed to fulfill their specific job requirements.

My spiritual studies taught me to consider the possibility there may be something about this (whatever “this” may be) I do not know.

Putting this together for personal application:

I recognize I don’t need to know everything. It’s particularly unproductive to expose myself to disturbing information I can’t control or do anything about. I’m cautioned to reserve judgment on information I am exposed to because it’s quite likely there’s something related to this information I don’t know about. There“s no need then to concern myself with anything other than what I know I need to do, if anything.

I think everyone would benefit from being aware of and observing the Serenity Prayer:

God,
grant me the Serenity
to accept the things I cannot CHANGE,

Courage
to CHANGE the things I can;

and

Wisdom
to know the DIFFERENCE.

I have a prayer, too.

OH, GOD! Give me a break!

No, because its human nature to expect that everything will go as planned but life goes another way instead.

Criticism happens comes from all quarters regardless of the intent.
No one can anticipate the unknow happening.

Biden stated that they didn’t anticipate that the Taliban would move in so soon, unfortunately they didn’t anticipate that in the first place.

It shows that the Taliban is much more organized than one thought and that is a scary thought.