By refusing to use overwhelming air power to blunt the Taliban’s rise, President Joe Biden is failing to protect American interests in Afghanistan and ultimately undermining national security.

The Taliban clearly hold the current strategic initiative. That said, Afghan forces, especially special forces units, are managing to inflict casualties on Taliban forces. Still, provincial capitals are beginning to fall. As more Afghan units become exhausted, the Taliban will find it easier to compress major population centers such as Kandahar and Kabul. U.S. policymakers should consider the prospective fall of those cities to be intolerable.