Some 2,300 American military personnel were killed over 20 years in a trillion-dollar conflict that ended, not in outright victory or defeat, but appallingly with a throng of destitute Afghanis — who were abandoned by the very government that promised asylum in exchange for their cooperation — running alongside and literally clinging in desperation to an Air Force C-17 as it departed Kabul for the final time.

This is not the United States at its best. The whole world, allies and opponents alike, have come to expect better from us than this. In fact the disappointment is palpable and it’s impossible to blame them.