The Afghan situation . . .

I have no special insight on any foreign policy issue, but if you’re interested in a no-nonsense defense of Biden’s policy see this post by Scott Lemieux.

His key points are (my interpretation/paraphrase):

Long term low-engagement occupation was not a serious option, the only choices on the table were long term escalation or pulling out. (This is an important point to me. If low-engagement occupation could have worked long-term, that would have been worth serious consideration, given the suffering the Taliban are going to inflict on the Afghan people.)

The military was strongly in favor of continued occupation, which meant that they could not be trusted to implement a pull out of Afghan civilians in a timely way. (Josh Marshall makes a similar point here.)

Biden will be heavily criticized because the Afghan government fell much more quickly than he predicted. But he should hit back hard:

The quick collapse of the corrupt Afghan army after 20 years and tens of billions spent on training and equipment is the clearest possible evidence that there was no path to victory or stability in Afghanistan.

The fact is that Biden said he would get us out of Afghanistan and he did. He knew it would be ugly and he would be harshly criticized, but he stepped up to the plate. Trump said he would withdraw, but when push came to shove he just waffled and punted.