WARS ARE NOT WON BY EVACUATIONS.

That, though, is exactly what Washington Monthly's Storer H. Rowley would like you to believe.

By all accounts, it’s reasonable for most Americans to assume this hastily arranged pullout has been an unmitigated disaster. To be sure, the Taliban has already taken over large swaths of Afghanistan, with devastating consequences for the Afghan people, especially women and girls. The scenes around Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul have been heartbreaking. The videos of Afghans clinging to U.S. military transport planes and falling to their deaths were a horrible bookend to the memories of people falling or jumping from the burning upper floors of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11—the event that propelled the U.S. into the war 20 years ago.

But that same media coverage has also overshadowed and under-covered the remarkable achievements of the U.S. military in executing an unprecedented international airlift to save Americans, NATO allies, Afghan partners, and their families. U.S. forces and coalition flights have evacuated well over 100,000 people since the evacuation began at the end of July, most of whom are Afghans who helped our soldiers over the last two decades.

Of course, there are questions that still need to be answered about the execution of the pullout—it’s an utter tragedy that this decades-long war ends with the Taliban taking control of the country in just a matter of days as the U.S. leaves—but the military is doing an exceptional job. Despite the hysteria in news accounts and the handwringing by politicians and some allied leaders, a mission like this one isn’t won or lost in a single news cycle.

That writing, which calls to mind a gibe the elder President Bush tossed at Saddam Hussein, something like "claiming victory in the middle of a retreat," detracts from a subsequent observation that people might do well to read and understand.

Biden showed courage in choosing not to pass the decision to end the war on to the next president and avoid international controversy.

Clearly, his administration will be judged on its failure to plan for a rapid collapse of a U.S.-backed government that its own people wouldn’t fight to defend. But the success of the withdrawal, overall, shouldn’t be judged based on what happens to Afghanistan once America leaves. The great failure happened two decades ago, when the George W. Bush administration undertook its misguided approach to nation-building in the Middle East.

Rather, success should be measured on whether the U.S. can continue to successfully evacuate Americans and our allies—and whether Biden can finally extract America from its longest war and allow the nation to move on. Ultimately, that could enable the U.S. to tackle new foreign policy priorities and help restore U.S. credibility and standing in the world.

Disentangling "credibility and standing" from "nation building" might be beyond the capabilities of our Credentialed Betters, particularly if they still entertain visions of that liberal international order.  The blaming of Afghans for fighting according to their local rules of feuding isn't likely to play well outside the gathering places of the establishment.