As the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 looms, President Joe Biden has rushed to pull US troops out of Afghanistan. What are we to make of all of this?

In a recent conversation led by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) on the exodus of religious minority communities in Afghanistan, various scholars and leaders spoke on the current and anticipated plight of such groups, especially the Sikh and Hindu communities.

History may not repeat itself, as Mark Twain is credited with saying, but it does indeed rhyme sometimes. Sadly, the American people and their leaders are not interested in the rhymes or lessons of history.

Nations great and small largely determine their own destiny under the mercy or judgment of an ever watchful Providence.

In five years, the human rights situation in Afghanistan will be back to square one.

In the almost-19 years since they dispatched their military to Afghanistan, US policymakers and the people they represent have learned, relearned, and unlearned several lessons.

Much of Carter Malkesian’s narrative about the Afghan war is spot-on, but he gets several key events wrong.

Talks between the Trump administration and the Taliban have broken down. We should be happy they did not reach a deal, in part because an Iraq-style drawdown would leave a vacuum, and terrorists abhor a vacuum.

In fact, this finger-in-the-dam strategy is the best available option given America’s de facto preference to enjoy relative freedom from jihadist violence without the expense of solving the root problems from which jihadism springs. This style of frontier warfare is the price America pays for regional order on the cheap.