Afghanistan: What Biden's critics get wrong, and the debt owed Afghan refugees

The Biden administration could certainly have better planned the extraction of civilians from Afghanistan. Yet media and politicians portray the fall of Afghanistan as a broader strategic debacle for U.S. foreign policy and President Joe Biden. They say America’s abandonment of the elected government in Kabul undermines U.S. efforts to support democracy elsewhere; harms U.S. alliance commitments; will be a boon for terrorists, and is likely to result in massive human rights violations. 

These criticisms exaggerate the fallout. Responsibility for the current mess does not lie primarily with those who decided to face the reality of an unwinnable war and call it quits. Instead, it rests mainly with those who expanded what had begun as a limited mission to hunt down suspected terrorists linked to al Qaeda into “nation-building” in Afghanistan — President George W. Bush and his administration.