The Clinton administration looked the other way at the Taliban’s creation, and did nothing about their harboring of al-Qaeda. The Bush administration insisted that the Taliban were not our enemy, and its State Department declined to designate the Taliban as a terrorist organization. The Obama administration elevated the Taliban into a peace-partner worthy of negotiations even as the Taliban colluded with Iran and al-Qaeda in operations against American troops. The Trump administration pretended that you could end a “forever war” without losing to the Taliban by simply leaving — even as officials knew they needed to mislead Americans about the Taliban’s intentions and loyalties. And now the Biden administration gets to preside over what will be the most shameful American moment on the world stage since the fall of Saigon in 1975.

Through it all, the Taliban — which could have stayed in power had they just agreed to hand over al-Qaeda leaders after 9/11, but wouldn’t — never wavered in their hostility to the United States, their vows that they would ultimately win, and their conviction that a superpower fearful of condemning the ideology that catalyzes its opposition is not serious about fighting.

Twenty years . . . and we are still where we were on September 10, 2001.