The photographs and reporting from Kabul, the besieged airport there, and from other places in the broken land of Afghanistan are surely most troubling. But they indicate in no way American defeat.

Let’s take a look at the players, the victims, the outbidding cycle, and why ISIS-K is likely to ramp up the violence in Afghanistan. All of this suggests much more violence that will target Christians and Shia Muslims, as well as more oppression of highly (Western) educated people, women, and others who may not bend to the new social order.

So, should we stay indefinitely in places like Afghanistan and Iraq? The answer depends on whether the costs are worth the benefits compared to American interests in other parts of the world.

With the debacle unfolding in Afghanistan, what is the schema that political leaders have in mind?

Robert G. Morrison reflects on the fall of Afghanistan and the lack of religious freedom there.

A Taliban-led government in Afghanistan is going to be both an opportunity and a strategic threat for Iran.

What would President Roosevelt say of President Joe Biden and his Democratic administration abandoning the Afghan people? Perhaps Biden, and many in the West, have turned away from winning because they have lost a sense that victory, even an unsatisfying partial victory, is politically and morally viable.

Afghanistan’s fall is a shameful and unnecessary tragedy . We owe it to our warfighters and those who fought with them to do whatever good can still be done.

Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan may become one of the great blunders American foreign policy students will need to study.