Why the fiasco in Afghanistan will haunt Biden

In May, I wrote a column on the difficulties of ending the “forever war” in Afghanistan and wondered whether European allies should try to temper the Joe Biden administration’s withdrawal plans.Although it was always clear that the perception of losing the war would be hard and humbling, the levels of chaos that accompanied the extraction and the excessive trauma inflicted upon the Afghan people were deeply shocking. It became clear that Biden’s abrupt and complete withdrawal of American forces was a strategic error of significant magnitude. Along with this realization is the question of how will this episode affect U.S. foreign policy going forward