What Does the Fall of Saigon Really Have to Teach Us About Afghanistan?

The comparisons may have less to do with history than a right-wing fixation.

The fall of Kabul, Afghanistan, to the Taliban has inevitably drawn comparisons to the 1975 “fall of Saigon”—so many that, on Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the press, “This is not Saigon.” But Blinken’s efforts haven’t stopped the supposed historical parallels from coming, often from the right, which has quickly moved to cast the event as a failure of President Biden and his administration.

But what, if anything, can the fall of Saigon really teach us,...