Timeline of U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan

The blame game has begun over who lost Afghanistan.

The fact is, President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, were both eager to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and end what Biden referred to in his Aug. 16 speech as “America’s longest war.”

The Trump administration in February 2020 negotiated a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban that excluded the Afghan government, freed 5,000 imprisoned Taliban soldiers and set a date certain of May 1, 2021, for the final withdrawal.

And the Trump administration kept to the pact, reducing U.S. troop levels from about 13,000 to 2,500, even...