The political war over America’s deadly, disastrous military withdrawal from Afghanistan is back in the spotlight this week after key House Republicans and Democrats each released their own reports on the August 2021 exit.

In his report, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, Texas Republican, blasted the Biden administration for prioritizing “the optics of the withdrawal over the security of U.S. personnel on the ground,” and for failing to take the steps needed to get all Americans and Afghan allies of the country before Kabul fell to the Taliban. He said the administration “was determined to withdraw from Afghanistan … no matter the cost,” and ignored warning signs about, among other things, the fundamental weakness of the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.

The GOP report lays heavy blame on the “Biden-Harris administration,” as the document also serves a useful political purpose for Republicans by tying Vice President Kamala Harris to the withdrawal a day ahead of her high-stakes debate with her presidential campaign foe, Republican nominee Donald Trump, on Tuesday night. Ms. Harris so far has mostly escaped blame for the withdrawal, though Republicans are certainly redoubling their efforts to ding the vice president on the issue. 

House Foreign Affairs Committee minority Democrats released their own Afghanistan report, one that accuses Republicans of engaging in “partisan attempts to garner headlines rather than acknowledge [that] the full facts and substance of their investigation have only increased with the heat of an election season.” The big takeaway is that Democrats, led by Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Gregory Meeks of New York, believe that Mr. Biden — and Ms. Harris — are being unfairly blamed as part of a political ploy by Republicans to use Afghanistan for electoral gain.

If all of that wasn’t enough, the State Department is out with its own lengthy rebuttal to the GOP report, defending the administration and its actions leading up to and during the summer 2021 withdrawal.

“We will not stand by silently as the department and its workforce are used to further partisan agendas,” the State Department said.

The U.S. and its allies should not be “unnecessarily intimidated” by Russian threats to unleash its nuclear arsenal, CIA Director William Burns said over the weekend in a surprise public appearance alongside British MI6 chief Sir Richard Moore in London.

Mr. Burns dubbed Russian President Vladimir Putin a “bully,” and said the Kremlin’s nuclear saber-rattling is aimed at intimidating the West. While CIA analysts had assessed there was a genuine danger in 2022 that Mr. Putin might follow through on threats to use his vast nuclear arsenal against Ukraine and its allies, Mr. Burns said that more recent Russian threats were far less plausible. His remarks could fuel questions about whether the U.S. and its NATO allies have made a mistake by seemingly allowing Russian nuclear threats to inhibit Western policy on the war.

Meanwhile, Romanian officials said that a Russian drone violated Romania’s airspace during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine. Romania deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace. NATO allies were kept informed of the situation, while Romanian emergency authorities also issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions.

U.S.-Russia tensions are heating up on multiple fronts. Washington Times reporter Ryan Lovelace has been tracking all the details on foreign efforts to influence the American election, including through Russian-built networks of American influencers and stepped-up Iranian cyber operations.

Russia is the most active foreign threat to manipulate voters, federal officials told reporters late last week. For example, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the Russian-controlled RT media outlet had assembled networks of American and other Western personalities to create and spread pro-Russian narratives.

The new details from ODNI came just days after the Biden administration accused the Kremlin of perpetrating a wide-ranging and sophisticated effort to disrupt U.S. politics with misinformation crafted in Moscow and injected into the American campaign debate  through unwitting American social media “influencers.” The FBI seized nearly three dozen internet domains, federal prosecutors brought charges against two media executives, and the Treasury Department froze the assets of 10 people and two Russian outfits that federal officials say were involved in the covert operation.

Iranian efforts to influence the American election are also very much at the forefront. Intelligence officials recently blamed Iran-backed actors for an alleged hack of the Trump campaign. 

Those two countries remain engaged in more traditional military cooperation. The U.S. has informed allies that it believes Iran has transferred short-range ballistic missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine, the Associated Press reported Monday, citing two people familiar with the matter. 

Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez has fled into exile after being granted asylum in Spain, a surprise move that seemingly cements incumbent President Nicolas Maduro’s grip on power. The abrupt departure of the man considered by Venezuela’s opposition and several foreign governments to be the legitimate winner of July’s presidential race was announced over the weekend by Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez. 

Ms. Rodriguez said the government decided to grant Mr. Gonzalez safe passage out of the country, just days after ordering his arrest, to help restore “the country’s political peace and tranquility.”

The U.S. and many other nations believe that Mr. Gonzalez, not Mr. Maduro, rightfully won the country’s July presidential election. In a statement, the State Department said that Mr. Gonzalez’s exit is “the direct result of the anti-democratic measures that Nicolas Maduro has unleashed on the Venezuelan people” in the weeks since that contest.

The war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas is part of a much broader struggle between civilization and savagery that dates back to the dawn of history. That’s the argument from Washington Times columnist Don Feder, who argues in a new piece that jihadists and extremists only understand the kind of tough rhetoric and approach employed by Mr. Trump.

“We should not look for trouble, and we should conserve our resources for a time when our survival is at stake. But we must understand that peace is always temporary, a respite bought with the blood of patriots,” he writes.

• Sept. 10 — Strategic Planning in Chaos: The Future of the U.S.-Israel Security Partnership, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

• Sept. 10 — How to Counter China’s Global South Strategy in the Indo-Pacific, Hudson Institute

• Sept. 11 — Afghanistan under the Taliban: Power Dynamics, Regional Relations, and U.S. Policy, Brookings Institution 

• Sept. 12 — Ground Forces and Great Powers: A Conversation with U.S. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, Stimson Center

• Sept. 20 — Confronting the Axis of Upheaval, Center for a New American Security