By now, the American troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is etched into history as a failure — one that punctured the Biden administration’s self-professed persona as a collective of calm and cool national security veterans. The Taliban’s rapid capture of the entire country, coinciding with the meltdown of the US-funded Afghan security forces and the awful optics of desperate Afghans trying to get on a flight out of Kabul, will be examined by historians for decades.

The history-writing is already well underway.