America’s Afghan war is over but the battle for Biden’s legacy is only just beginning

Biden’s missteps

In the East Room of the White House on July 8, Biden reported to the country that the US drawdown was “proceeding in a secure and orderly way” and noted that because of the way the withdrawal was managed “no one — no one, US forces or any forces have … been lost.”

By setting this standard for the operation, the President penned himself into a political corner. His harrowing ordeal in the same stately room last week, after the suicide bombing that also killed dozens of Afghans, shattered a White House attempt to spin the withdrawal as a victory. The deaths of the US troops means that any political gloating that Biden might have been tempted to do over ending the war would now seem in poor taste.

Even before last week, Biden’s conduct had revealed an unflattering side of his character. He declared the buck stopped with him for the chaos after the fall of Kabul, but actually dumped blame almost everywhere else. The depictions of a smoothly running evacuation in Kabul were exposed as false by eyewitness reports of journalists there, including CNN’s Clarissa Ward. The President seemed indifferent to the plight of Afghans who had risked their lives as translators and in other positions for US forces and diplomatic efforts. The reputation of a leader who ran on compassion and always leveling with Americans will take some repairing.

But Afghanistan’s rewind moment also leaves a terrible question likely to be even more acute in coming years if it again emerges as a threat to US security. After the deaths of 2,461 American troops and civilians, more allied soldiers and many more Afghan civilians, what was it all for?