IN AUGUST AMERICA’S longest war came to an end: President Joe Biden ordered the last 2,500 U.S. troops out of Afghanistan after almost 20 years, $2 trillion spent and approximately 170,000 dead, including 2,400 U.S. service members and 47,000 civilians. Polls showed Americans favored leaving Afghanistan about as strongly as they had supported the war when President George W. Bush launched it in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The goal then was to rout al-Qaeda, whose founder Osama bin Laden had based operations there, and to topple the Taliban government that shielded the terrorist group. By December 2001 the Taliban was in retreat and a president, Hamid Karzai, was in place. But America’s presence dragged on amid civil war between the U.S.-backed government and a…