Biden vs Boot

 Joe Biden has finally positioned America to accept what has been a fact since at least 2003: we cannot win a war in Afghanistan. We have spent literally a generation there fighting America's longest war. We cannot change what Afghanistan is or who "Afghans" are. The country was broken long before we got there and will be broken no matter when we leave.

On the other hand, you have Never Trumper Max Boot who - incredibly - compares Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan with Nixon's plan to leave Vietnam to argue AGAINST leaving. Vietnam was America's first great defeat that could not be spun away (the way 1812 was). It signaled the limits on American power at a time when Americans had falsely concluded American power had no limits. America failed to win in Vietnam, because it could never win in Vietnam. 

In Vietnam, in Afghanistan, somewhat so in Iraq, America has tried to prop up friendly governments that lack legitimacy with large swaths of the population. The Diem regime in Vietnam was...terrible. We even sanctioned a coup to replace with another terrible government. In Afghanistan, the central government struggles to produce legitimacy in large sections of Afghanistan, especially the Pashtun areas. Providing roads and jobs is irrelevant, when the source of those roads and jobs is a hostile invader whose troops are in your country against local wishes.

After Saigon fell, horrible things happened. When Kabul falls - and it will fall - horrible things will happen. Ultimately, America's security will only be truly impacted by the return of Al Qaeda, which is not dependent on who controls Afghanistan. If anything, our presence in Middle Eastern wars has strengthened the rhetorical case for Al Qaeda, even as it has degraded their operational capacity. The Islamic State has largely served as a sponge for radicalized Muslims, and IS is not in Afghanistan.

The Taliban are bad. America cannot, in the long term, stop the Taliban from gaining power. Armchair generals like Max Boot - a neocon who never served a day in uniform - don't seem to grasp this fact.