The Atlantic
The Original Sin of the War in Afghanistan
How Biden viewed the start of America’s post-9/11 wars may inform his future decisions on the use of force.
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Andrew Harnik / Tauseef Mustafa / AFP / Getty / The Atlantic
The original sin of the war in Iraq was going to war in Iraq. And the original sin of the war in Afghanistan was going to war in Iraq.
In September 2001, when Joe Biden was the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I was the policy adviser for the stretch of Asia that included Afghanistan. By 9 a.m. on 9/11, I felt certain that al-Qaeda (which was based in Afghanistan) was behind the attacks but that we’d end up invading Iraq anyway.