The US political establishment has suddenly rediscovered an interest in terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS-K, either as a cudgel to beat the White House with over the escape from Kabul, or an excuse to stay in Afghanistan.
The Biden administration can’t seem to decide whether Al-Qaeda has been effectively eliminated – as President Joe Biden himself argued – or may still be in Afghanistan but not in numbers “significant enough to merit a threat to our homeland,” as the Pentagon spokesman John Kirby put it recently.
Either way, the White House says, it’s time for the US to leave Afghanistan – something most Americans don’t actually disagree with, but have many questions about the way it’s being done.