These are the three social evils Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned would destroy America from within: Militarism, materialism, and racism. Decades later, they help explain the divisions in our country that led to the January 6 attack by protesters on the U.S. Capitol. Of the three, however, the role our recent wars have played in exacerbating these conditions is often the most overlooked.
Video produced by Khody Akhavi.
It will be four years since the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021, ending a nearly 20-year occupation that could serve as a poster child for mission creep.
What began in October 2001 as a narrow intervention to destroy al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, and topple the Taliban government for refusing to hand over al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, morphed into an open-ended nation-building operation that killed 2,334 U.S. military personnel and wounded over 20,000 more.
But the failure of the war to deliver on its maximalist platitudes of bringing peace, democracy, and women’s rights to a nation that rejected them has obscured two of the most important lessons from the conflict and its end: first, the U.S. need not occupy a country indefinitely to prevent terrorism against the U.S. homeland. Second, the United States will severely punish any government that allows terrorist groups to attack U.S. targets from its territory, and the threat of U.S. punishment is a highly credible deterrent against state-sponsored terrorism.
Those two facts should be shouted from the rooftops of the nation’s capital any time members of the foreign policy establishment claim that the U.S. must deploy troops to far-off locales to prevent terrorist “safe havens” from emerging.
In fact, there have been zero terrorist attacks directly linked to Afghanistan against U.S. targets at home or abroad in the four years since the U.S. departed. Zero. The 2025 Bourbon Street attack, which killed 14 people, was perpetrated by a lone-wolf U.S. citizen who was “inspired” by ISIS ideology but acted alone, with no known contacts to the original ISIS or its Afghan affiliate, ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K).
That’s despite fevered warnings of worst-case scenarios that would supposedly result if the U.S.-backed Afghan government crumbled in the wake of our military withdrawal. That government did fall, rapidly, and the Taliban regained control as feared. Yet we have not seen a resurgence of jihadist terrorism targeting the United States.
There are two big reasons why. First, effective counterterrorism does not require boots on the ground, so leaving Afghanistan has not hampered U.S. efforts in that security space. The United States is extraordinarily capable of detecting and disrupting international terrorist threats with over-the-horizon intelligence and targeting capabilities.
In the nearly 25 years since 9/11, U.S. counterterrorism capabilities have grown so sophisticated that there are no “safe havens” from U.S. reach, even in a Taliban-led Afghanistan. The U.S. didn’t need troops on the ground to locate and kill al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul with a drone strike on his safe house in July 2022, for example.
Nor has a presence been necessary for authorities to foil the handful of plots tenuously linked to ISIS or ISIS-K against the U.S. in the past few years, including the 2024 Election Day plot in Oklahoma and a potential assault on a U.S. Army base in Michigan in 2025. Neither plot was well-advanced, and while the suspects believed they were conspiring with foreign terrorists, it’s not even clear those contacts were real. The would-be assailant in Michigan, a teenager, was actually communicating with undercover F.B.I. agents posing as ISIS members all along.
U.S. and allied intelligence services have also foiled multiple plots in Europe linked to international terrorist groups since the U.S. left Afghanistan and were able to alert Iran and Russia of the looming ISIS-K attacks on those countries in 2024 – warnings that were tragically disregarded by local authorities, resulting in the loss of nearly 250 lives.
Withdrawing troops from Afghanistan has actually made the U.S. less vulnerable to terrorism by depriving local groups of U.S. targets to attack. The last – and only – mass casualty attack ISIS-K perpetrated against the U.S. occurred during the chaotic withdrawal itself, when 13 U.S. troops providing crowd control at the Kabul airport were killed alongside 170 Afghan civilians by a lone suicide bomber.
With U.S. troops gone, hurting the U.S. is much more difficult. In fact, ISIS-K has never managed to strike U.S. targets outside of Afghanistan.
The second reason Afghanistan hasn’t devolved into a launching pad for anti-U.S. terrorism is that the Taliban government knows that the United States will not tolerate it — from Afghanistan or anywhere else. If the 20-year Afghanistan War proved anything, it’s that the threat of massive U.S. retaliation for state-sponsored terrorism is both deadly serious and a powerful deterrent against allowing terrorists to operate freely.
It's ironic that U.S. policymakers worry so much about establishing credibility in marginal situations but can’t recognize overwhelming U.S. credibility where it does exist.
It should be unsurprising, then, that the Taliban have largely upheld their pledge from the 2020 Doha peace deal to never again allow armed groups to menace the U.S. homeland from Afghan territory. That assurance was credible, not because of any trustworthiness or altruism on the Taliban’s part, but because it served the regime’s own interest in political survival. Permitting a repeat of 9/11 would be regime suicide, and since returning to power, the Taliban have fought a protracted campaign to weaken ISIS-K.
Moreover the Taliban has not allowed al-Qaeda to revive itself, despite friendly ties to the group. Al-Qaeda “is all but destroyed” in Afghanistan, according to Bruce Riedel, a former U.S. counterterrorism official, and U.S. intelligence believes the group is unlikely to reconstitute.
Realizing that boots on the ground are unnecessary to disrupt foreign plots and deter state-sponsored terrorism should be enormously consequential for security efforts going forward. It means the U.S. can safely end its anti-ISIS mission in Iraq next month, as planned, and withdraw all 2,500 U.S. troops from the country by the end of 2026.
It also reinforces the wisdom of the ongoing U.S. drawdown from Syria and suggests the U.S. footprint there should be completely removed. And it undercuts any rationale for deploying U.S. forces across more than 10 countries in Africa — or anywhere else — that purported “sanctuaries” could arise.
The U.S. must implement the lessons learned from the Afghanistan withdrawal. Those lessons came at a steep price. Let’s do what we can to not pay it ever again.
If you wanted to create a classic recipe for political crisis, you could well choose a mixture of a stagnant economy, a huge and growing public debt, a perceived need radically to increase military spending, an immigration crisis, a deeply unpopular president, a government without a majority in parliament, and growing radical parties on the right and left.
In other words, France today. And France’s crisis is only one part of the growing crisis of Western Europe as a whole, with serious implications for the future of transatlantic relations.
The latest shock in France has come with the announcement by Prime Minister Francois Bayrou that he will call a parliamentary vote of confidence on September 8 over his plan for €43.8 billion ($51.1 billion) in budget cuts to address France’s budget deficit 5.8 percent of GDP — almost double the three percent that is supposed to be the limit for members of the Eurozone, and the highest in Europe after Greece and Italy, leading to a debt to GDP ratio of 113 percent. French GDP growth last year was only 1.2 percent and the economy is projected to grow by a mere 0.6 percent this year.
Bayrou’s plan includes the freezing of welfare payments, reductions in pensioners’ benefits, the abolition of two national holidays, deep cuts to state jobs, and unspecified tax increases for the wealthy. The only area of state spending that will increase is the military — and it is President Macron’s pledge (in line with the promise of Europe’s NATO members to President Trump) radically to increase military spending that has brought France’s fiscal crisis to a head.
This would involve the French military budget rising from around two percent now to 3.5 percent (plus another 1.5 percent in “defense-related” infrastructure spending). In July, Macron promised that the French military budget would reach €64 billion in 2027, three years earlier than previously planned and twice the figure in 2017. He also promised that this would not involve any increase in debt. Bayrou’s thankless task is to try to reconcile these two promises.
Bayrou is prime minister today because his predecessor, Michel Barnier, was ousted nine months ago in a vote of no confidence after he passed the 2025 budget by emergency decree having failed to gain a parliamentary majority for budget cuts. This was the first time a government had been ousted by a no confidence vote since 1962.
Bayrou stands a very good chance of being the second premier in a year to fall this way. On the face of it, his challenge looks insuperable. The loose coalition of centrist parties that supports the government was beaten in the snap elections called by Macron in the summer of 2024, and despite an election deal with the left in the second round to keep National Rally (which won a plurality of votes) down to third place in the number of seats, have only 210 seats in the National Assembly, compared to 142 for the radical rightists National Rally and its allies, and 180 for the left-wing New Popular Front.
Both of these groupings have declared that they will vote to oust the government if it persists with its budget plan. The socialists are strongly opposed to austerity measures, and are allied with trades unions that have announced a nationwide strike on September 10 to block the budget.
As for Marine le Pen, leader of the National Rally, her friendliness towards the government is hardly likely to have been increased by what many see as a politically-motivated legal case launched against her by the government, which (unless overturned on appeal) will lead to her being banned from standing in the next presidential elections.
If Bayrou’s government falls, there are likely to be fresh parliamentary elections; and the premier’s best chance may be that neither of the opposition blocs are afraid that the French public would blame them for a new political crisis, and that if the government is prepared to abandon some of its budget cuts (or covertly abandon the case against Le Pen), one or other could abstain in the no-confidence vote, leading to a government victory.
This is far from certain however. Radical socialist leader Jean-Luc Melenchon has already said that Macron himself should resign if the government loses new elections.
The implications of this crisis extend far beyond the borders of France. Bayrou has warned that if it does not reduce its debt, France will risk the fate of Greece after the 2008 financial crisis, when it suffered years of recession and very harsh and bitterly unpopular austerity measures imposed by the European Union (at the instigation of Germany) as a condition of its bailouts.
It seems inconceivable however that Brussels would be able to impose such austerity measures on France, the second largest economy in the EU. Presiding over deepening economic decline would be the politically easier choice. Moreover Germany, the largest economy, is facing severe budgetary problems of its own. Disputes over the budget brought down the last German coalition government.
The present coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats have agreed (despite deep unhappiness among fiscal conservatives in the CDU) to increase borrowing from €33 billion in 2024 to €81 billion this year and €126 billion in 2029 in order to pay for a doubling of Germany’s military spending and huge (and badly needed) investment in infrastructure. Economists are warning however that this will not be sustainable without cuts in social welfare. As elsewhere in Europe, Germany’s problems in this regard are being worsened by its aging population, which both reduces the tax base and creates a huge lobby against cuts to pensions and healthcare.
The German elections in February saw a surge in support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) which opinion polls now show as close to overtaking the Christian Democrats as the most popular party. If this rise is sustained up to the next German national elections due in 2029, then one of two things will happen: either the other parties will maintain their “firewall” against allowing AfD into government, which will require a permanent, unstable and deeply divided coalition of perhaps all the other parties against them, or the firewall will collapse, leading to a German government far to the right of anything seen since 1945.
In Britain too, the Labour government of Keir Starmer is deeply unpopular. It has suffered two humiliating revolts by its own MPs against its attempts to cut social welfare so as to increase military spending and is facing the defection of many of its voters to a new left-wing party. Debt to GDP stands at 103 percent and rising.
As in France and Germany, the right-wing populist Reform Party of Nigel Farage is surging in the polls, and has a real chance of forming the next British government.
Some of these radical parties of the right and left (like AfD and the socialists in France) are openly opposed to European military support for Ukraine and increases in military spending. Others fell in line behind NATO under the shock of the Russian invasion, but are strongly opposed to a European reassurance force for Ukraine. All believe (though with very different emphases) that their countries’ problems are overwhelmingly internal ones, that will not be solved by higher military spending.
The lessons for the Trump administration are the following: first, be very skeptical of European promises to significantly increase military spending. Even if present governments are sincere, it may well be simply beyond their power.Second, however, be careful of pushing them too hard. The political and economic stability of Europe is an old and vital US interest — far more vital than the exact borders of Ukraine.
Finally, be even more careful about encouraging and guaranteeing a European “reassurance force” for Ukraine. Lacking both adequate resources and adequate political support, the European planners of this force are in no position to guarantee it themselves.
Europe appears set to move from threats to action. According to reports, the E3 — Britain, France, and Germany — will likely trigger the United Nations “snapback” process this week. Created under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), this mechanism allows any participant to restore pre-2015 U.N. sanctions if Iran is judged to be in violation of its commitments.
The mechanism contains a twist that makes it so potent. Normally, the Security Council operates on the assumption that sanctions need affirmative consensus to pass. But under snapback, the logic is reversed. Once invoked, a 30-day clock begins. Sanctions automatically return unless the Security Council votes to keep them suspended, meaning any permanent member can force their reimposition with a single veto.
For Europe, the looming October 18, 2025 sunset clause — the date when these U.N. sanctions are set to permanently expire — has created a sense of urgency. By acting now, European governments hope to maximize leverage over Tehran and force renewed cooperation. Yet in doing so, Europe risks narrowing, if not closing altogether, the space for diplomacy at the very moment it is most needed.
The move comes in a deeply fraught context. The JCPOA was already fragile before this summer’s war. The unraveling began in 2018, when the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from the deal despite repeated confirmations from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran was in compliance. Washington not only pulled out, but also reimposed sweeping sanctions, devastating Iran’s economy and undoing the bargain at the heart of the deal.
European leaders promised to shield Iran from U.S. pressure and preserve the agreement. But they failed to deliver the economic relief that was central to the JCPOA’s logic. By 2019, with no benefits forthcoming, Tehran began to exceed limits on enrichment and stockpiles. Iranian officials pointed to provisions in the accord that allowed such steps if other parties were not meeting their obligations.
The fragile balance collapsed further this summer. In June, joint U.S.–Israeli strikes targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities. In response, Tehran expelled IAEA inspectors and suspended cooperation with the agency, arguing that it had failed to condemn what Iran described as an unlawful act of aggression. Trust — already frayed — was all but destroyed.
Against this backdrop, Europe’s snapback gamble looks less like a path to reviving cooperation than an escalation designed to squeeze Iran into short-term concessions. Instead of restoring confidence, it risks locking both sides into a cycle of pressure and retaliation with no offramp.
Even the enforceability of snapback is questionable. Russia and China are almost certain to reject a unilateral reimposition of sanctions. That would fracture implementation, leaving sanctions applied inconsistently across the international system. The effect would be to weaken not only the JCPOA but also the credibility of the U.N. Security Council itself.
Europe insists there is an offramp: an extension of the October 2025 sunset clause if Iran resumes full cooperation with inspectors and re-engages in talks with Washington. But because this offer is tied to the snapback threat, diplomacy is compressed into a 30-day ultimatum. The E3 are effectively demanding immediate concessions: unrestricted IAEA access to sites damaged in June’s strikes, a full accounting of uranium stockpiles enriched up to nearly 60 percent, and a resumption of substantive U.S.–Iran negotiations — all under the gun of looming U.N. sanctions.
The risks are significant. If the E3 fail to reach an agreement and act on their threat, enforcement would be highly uncertain, with Russia and China almost certain to reject a unilateral reimposition. Tehran, in turn, could respond by doubling down on nuclear ambiguity — or even moving toward withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as its officials have warned.
This was the path North Korea took after the collapse of its deal with the United States: first cultivating ambiguity about its program, then expelling inspectors and exiting the NPT in 2003, and ultimately transforming uncertainty into a declared nuclear arsenal through repeated weapons tests. Europe now risks pushing Iran across a similar threshold — one where diplomacy becomes much more difficult, locking the confrontation into place for decades.
There are more constructive ways to preserve verification and create space for diplomacy. Iran was just bombed while already at the negotiating table, and by some accounts a deal was nearly within reach. Trust is a two-way street, and the responsibility now falls on Europe to act as a credible interlocutor rather than an escalatory force in the triangle of tensions between the U.S., Israel, and Iran.
Instead of wielding threats, Europe and its partners could pursue a short, clearly defined technical extension of the Resolution 2231 timelines. That could be coupled with an interim package of reciprocal steps and targeted sanctions relief — enough to restore inspector access, sustain monitoring, and ensure that Iran attains tangible economic benefits. This is the essence of diplomacy: measured give-and-take, not unilateral demands in exchange for nothing.
But if Europe chooses coercion over cooperation, it may find that the window has slammed shut — leaving only the prospect of a more dangerous, more isolated, and more nuclear-capable Iran.
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