From the Tuesday edition of the Morning Jolt:

Why President Trump Had to Make the Decision He Did on Afghanistan
For the last couple of years, I’ve kept an eye on reports from the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, and the news is rarely good.
Since 2012, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John F. Sopko has done the grim, thankless work of looking at what the federal government’s massive investment in Afghanistan’s future is yielding. He and his team have found taxpayer money spent on soybeans that won’t grow, weapons that Afghan military forces lost, a $2.9 million farming-storage facility that was never used, and a $456,000 training center that “disintegrated” within four months. He’s documented the Afghan government’s inability to pay for basic services, curtail opium production and the drug trade, or utilize the country’s natural resources.
Last year, Sopko attempted to sum up his years of work, and declared he saw “evil omens for the future of a desperately poor and largely illiterate country.” He found cases of contractor misconduct and misspent funds, but the largest problems remain with the host country: “Afghanistan has had the lead responsibility for its own security for more than a year now, and is struggling with a four-season insurgency, high attrition, and capability challenges. Heavy losses in the poppy-growing province of Helmand have required rebuilding an Afghan army corps and replacing its commander and some other officers as a result, a U.S. general said, of ‘a combination of incompetence, corruption, and ineffectiveness.’”
From 2002 to 2016, Congress appropriated more than $113 billion to rebuild Afghanistan, paying for roads, clinics, schools, civil-servant salaries, and Afghan military and police forces. That total does not include U.S. military spending on the country. Adjusted for inflation, the amount we’ve spent to reconstruct Afghanistan now exceeds the total amount we gave to the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Western Europe after WWII.
In light of all this, and sixteen years of war, it is completely understandable that Americans want to throw up their hands, say to hell with it all, and withdraw all U.S. military forces.
The problem is we know what happens if we do. The Obama administration withdrew from Iraq and assured the public that the departure of coalition troops would not lead to an increased threat to Americans. Then ISIS gradually grew in our absence; Obama was so wedded to the idea that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq was the right move and did not exacerbate threats to Americans that he insisted the Islamists taking over Fallujuah were merely the “JV team.”
If our forces leave Afghanistan, it is likely that the Taliban will take over eventually. When they do, it is unlikely that they will be chastened and reformed and unwilling to host other jihadist terrorists like the ones in al Qaeda. If 9/11 had never occurred, the United States never would have invaded Afghanistan. For most of our history, Americans have paid little or no attention to that country, and would be content to let them set their own course, whether it is civilized or barbaric. The Taliban are barbaric, but the world is full of ruthless regimes and rulers that we’re not eager to topple: Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea.
The Taliban are different because they decided to be an AirB&B to the world’s most wanted terrorists and provided the safe haven for guys who killed 3,000 of our citizens. Who knows, perhaps if the Taliban had turned over al-Qaeda’s leaders to the United States or the Hague back in September 2001, a lot of our recent history would have turned out differently. But given a choice between us or them, the Taliban chose them.

For that reason, their return to power is a risk that is too great for Americans to accept.