Even President Joe Biden would likely admit he's made a few mistakes in his lengthy political career – not the least of which would be selecting Kamala Harris as his 2020 running mate.

Inflation, ballooning debt, the crisis at the southern border, and his mishandling of classified materials are or reflect just a few of his recent failures.

Moreover, Biden has tried to demonize those opposed to his agenda. Biden has falsely cast himself as a unifier, claiming repeatedly that there are no blue states or red states – despite also taking credit for rebuilding the blue wall. He has also targeted so-called "MAGA Republicans," claiming they want to destroy democracy. It is hard to see how his policies are the least bit unifying.

Biden's biggest failure of all was also what truly ended his honeymoon period with the American people: The botched withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in August 2021.

The War Had Essentially Ended

It is absolutely true that Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, had also pledged to withdraw U.S. forces and end our nation's longest war.

That fact has been used by Biden and his supporters to justify the rushed departure that left military equipment and Afghan allies equally abandoned, left 13 U.S. servicemembers dead, and allowed the Taliban to return to power.

The entire two decades spent in Afghanistan were for nothing — absolutely nothing. That is, unless one counts giving a modern military base to one of America's enemies as an accomplishment. Women's rights are being stripped away, and an American adversary has returned to power.

If there is any good news, so to speak, it is that the country has returned to a state of civil war. The Taliban is now engaged with ISIS, among other forces. Those who care about American interests will hope that both sides lose in a long, deadly, and expensive conflict.

It didn't have to be an all-or-nothing scenario in Afghanistan. The United States should have remained and continued to negotiate a power-sharing deal with the Taliban. 

The United States defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan at the end of the Second World War. Nearly 80 years later, there is a U.S. military presence in both nations, and our relationship with Germany and Japan is stronger for it.

The fact often missed is that the actual war in Afghanistan was largely ended. It is true that 437 U.S. service members were killed in 2010, but only four were killed in 2020. While the loss of even a single life should be seen as a tragedy, the withdrawal itself came at the needless cost of 13 American lives.

Afghanistan could see thousands more killed by the Taliban.

A Missed Opportunity

Perhaps nation-building in Afghanistan didn't work out as some would have liked, but the truth is that the country was on the road to modernization. Women could work, and girls could go to school. Change takes time.

Now the country is going backward.

The U.S. should have strived harder to build not just a government, but an economy. Turkey sought to build a housing factory in Afghanistan, and the United States should have pushed for similar efforts. Creating jobs would have created opportunities that could have led to the development of a middle class in the Central Asian nation.

Already some efforts to bring manufacturing to Afghanistan are happening, but it is Beijing, not Washington, that is now leading those plans. Last year, China Metallurgical Group announced it would invest $3 billion to build a plant in Afghanistan. China is working with the Taliban to build some 150 factories.

Perhaps this won't work out for China, and perhaps Beijing will find itself bogged down in a nation known as the "graveyard of empires." But the fact remains that the United States had an opportunity to make Afghanistan into something better, rather than leaving and abandoning its people.

That will be the legacy of Joe Biden. He handed Afghanistan to the Taliban, and China is the ultimate winner.