The Wisdom of Leaving Afghanistan

No sooner did news leak that U.S. President Joe Biden planned to withdraw the remaining 3,500 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan by Sept. 11 than the Washington Post’s editorial board swung into action, penning an April 13 opinion piece condemning the president’s decision. Biden, it huffed, was taking “the easy way out.”

The Washington Post’s reaction matters only insofar as it signals the tide of criticism Biden will face. Those objections amount to a cobbling together of familiar Washington bromides, nourished by the abiding conviction that the United States’ 20-year campaign in a country which it still seems to know little about can be ended on acceptable terms. Exhibit A in this regard: the Afghanistan Study Group Final Report, which devotes nearly 60 pages to regurgitating the standard brief for staying the course.