It has now been three months since President Joe Biden withdrew the last U.S. troops from Afghanistan. While Biden aides blame the Afghan government for believing threats of withdrawal were a bluff, Biden’s team ignores that his own special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad (a holdover from the Trump administration) had assured Afghan officials that there would be no withdrawal until the final stage of a peace agreement.

The Biden administration shows little guilt for the chaos they created in the manner and timing of their withdrawal. There have been no resignations to protest the president’s callousness and incompetence, such as what occurred when President Donald Trump betrayed the Syrian Kurds. Rather than fight terrorist groups, the Taliban encourages them. The notion that the United States could ally with the Taliban to fight other terrorists was always a fairy tale that Khalilzad sold to gullible diplomats and White House aides. Now, extremist elements from the Taliban’s suicide bomber brigade and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan man Afghanistan’s northern border and threaten the stability of Tajikistan. Promises of an over-the-horizon strike capability were false; there can be little effective intelligence collection in Afghanistan without a human component.