Afghanistan exit

President Biden is a usually affable politician with a megawatt smile, but his friendly spirit frequently camouflages a closed, unyielding, obstinate and intellectually arrogant mind. With respect to the Afghanistan withdrawal, he was totally inadequate, totally opinionated and totally certain of his own rectitude, the approach, interestingly, that he criticized in his predecessor. His cronies on the national security team — Blinken at State, Sullivan at the NSC, Austin at Defense and Milley at the JCS — apparently did not serve as policy architects with the president but appeared, man-for-man, unwavering in their support for the boss’s mistakes.

In a word, Biden was his own Rasputin. His belief that the calamitous withdrawal was a great triumph is an advertisement for Norman Vincent Peale’s book “The Power of Positive Thinking,” but is really a vain shadow, a will-o’-the-wisp hope that only a few in the effete media will support. The truth is that Biden authored a humiliating surrender to Taliban terrorists who will impose a tyrannical government in Afghanistan, one that will threaten America for the foreseeable future.

One rarely gets a do-over in the school of hard knocks, especially in Joe Biden’s classroom where the spineless and self-absorbed are taught.

— Paul Bloustein, Cincinnati, Ohio