On Friday, people across the country will engage in several minutes of silence for the nearly 3,000 people who perished during the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. The 19th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks is an especially difficult day for New Yorkers, many of whom lost friends and family in what has turned out to be the largest inflection point in U.S. foreign policy since the end of World War II.

In the days after Sept. 11, the public rightly demanded retaliation. Weeks later, the U.S. military began a campaign of airstrikes against al Qaida and the Taliban. The campaign achieved its objectives in a few short months: Al Qaida’s terrorist infrastructure was demolished, Osama bin Laden was cowering in Afghanistan’s eastern mountains, and a Taliban movement that once ruled 90% of the country was left floundering for a place in the new order.