Marshall here. Welcome back to the Realignment.

The Realignment has spent a lot of time covering the war in Afghanistan and the broader implications of the 20 years

the US spent in the country. We haven't covered as much how the war ended.

Now with the recent two-year anniversary of the Taliban's return to power,

I'm joined by Jerry Dunlavy, an investigator for the House Foreign Affairs Committee in James Hassan,

an Army veteran of the Afghan War. They've offered Kabul the untold story of Biden's fiasco and the American warriors

who fought to the end. With the title like that, Jerry and James obviously have a sharp point of view on the topic,

but I was curious what explored the degree to which one can separate the withdrawal,

which ended horrifically with suicide bombing and Afghan allies and US citizens alike left behind,

not to mention the images of people falling from planes as they took off,

from the broader debate over whether it was the right decision to end the war.

People like Sagar acknowledge the failures of the withdrawal, but believe messy exits are an

inherent aspect of any serious effort to end a failed nation-building attempt. Others think the US

presence itself was sustainable long-term and this was all a false choice. Jerry and James set aside

the war-ending question and instead focused on the specific tactical decisions the Biden

administration made, which they argue led to disaster. From their point of view, you could have

made the decision to withdraw from Kabul and Afghanistan without the horrific August that occurred

two years ago. With all that said, at a broader level, and this is just an interesting political point,

there's been significant evidence that a lot of the Biden administration struggles when it came to

polling actually started with the withdrawal itself, even though a majority of the countries

ending the actual war, the withdrawal itself may have permanently politically damaged the

administration, something that is going to make this matter moving into 2024, let alone broader

...