Biden wants to avoid escalation with Iran. How should he react in the Middle East? “It’s time to end the forever war,” President Biden said in 2021.
The ensuing debacle left the Taliban taking over a weak state that had been propped up with U.S. funding for nearly two decades. Biden and his allies are still defending what happened, believing the chaotic collapse in Kabul was an outcome already set in motion by the mistakes of Biden's predecessor. The attacks on Yemen's Houthi rebels, which also involved the British, were described as a deterrent.