A Famous Mike Tyson Quote Is the Key to Biden’s Foreign Policy

The accidental political scientist Michael Gerard Tyson once provided an apt summary of America’s foreign policy: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” For nearly a decade, Tyson reigned as the most feared fighter on the planet, with a single unchanging strategy: intimidate, dominate, overpower. When he encountered an adversary who couldn’t be intimidated, dominated, or overpowered, Iron Mike had no backup plan. He effectively ended his boxing career in ear-biting frustration, unable to heed his own sage warning. There’s a lesson here for another undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.

America’s final, chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan was a self-inflicted punch in the mouth. It followed a quick succession of bruising body blows: the collapse of a regime that the U.S. had spent $2 trillion defending, the return to power of a Taliban foe that had been ousted 20 years earlier, the loss of 13 service members in a terrorist attack