Opinion

History will cast a shadow over Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan

Afghanistan nagged at Joe Biden 10 years ago. He thought the Pentagon was muscling a new president, Barack Obama, into adding more troops for an unwinnable war. He believed the United States’ interests in Afghanistan should be focused on preventing another attack against the homeland.

This week, as president himself, Biden decisively reversed the choices made a decade ago and decided to withdraw all troops by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the ghastly al-Qaeda attacks that skewed U.S. foreign policy for two decades. It’s a gutsy move because the price of being wrong is enormous.