When President Joe Biden stood in front of the iconic green marble and gold foil backdrop to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 21, he declared that the U.S. had ended 20 years of conflict in Afghanistan and opened a new era of “relentless diplomacy, of using the power of our development aid to invest in new ways of lifting people up around the world.” That new era has gotten off to a rocky start. Afghanistan desperately needs U.S.