| "I was not going to extend a forever war. And I was not going to extend a forever exit." That's President Biden addressing the nation Tuesday, becoming the president who ended America's 20-year war in Afghanistan after his two predecessors tried but failed. American troops are out. So what happens now? Here are three things to watch for on the political front.  Biden speaks Tuesday about the end of America's longest war. | 1. Is there another terrorist attack emanating from Afghanistan? Biden maintains that U.S. intelligence stationed outside Afghanistan — what he calls a "over the horizon" approach — is sufficient to monitor what's happening in this country. But the Biden administration's intelligence failed to understand how quickly the Taliban would take over the country, and in the exit 13 U.S. service members were killed. Now that America is gone, few people trust the Taliban to uphold its end of a deal and keep out terrorists who want to attack the U.S. Any attack that can be tied to Afghanistan would immediately shape Biden's decision to end the war as a failure. "[If Biden is] unlucky," one conservative think tank analyst told The Post's Ashley Parker, "he will have invited another 9/11." 2. Do congressional Democrats investigate Biden's withdrawal? Some notable Democrats have described the hurried, deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan as "a failure" and "a disaster." Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) leads the Senate's intelligence committee, and he indicated he'll be starting an investigation "to ask tough but necessary questions about why we weren't better prepared for a worst-case scenario involving such a swift and total collapse of the Afghan government and security forces." 3. How quickly does this fade from public consciousness? Even if the specifics of what happened in these past few weeks fade, it's a safe bet that Americans will remember the withdrawal as troubled. But Biden's supporters hope that when his party is up for reelection next year — and when he is running in 2024 — that Afghanistan just isn't front and center in voters' minds. "They are going to play the World Series twice between now and when people vote in November of 2022," White House communications director Kate Bedingfield told my Post colleagues recently. Although if Afghanistan fades as a political issue, it could be because there are numerous other catastrophes rising or threatening to rise to take its place: the pandemic, inflation, climate change-fueled disasters, something else not on our radar. A stunning photo from the final day of war  Army Maj. Gen. Christopher T. Donahue on Monday boards a plane as the last service member on the ground in Afghanistan. (Army Master Sgt. Alex Burnett/U.S. Army) | This is the last U.S. service member in Afghanistan. The Post's Alex Horton has his story. The most controversial members of Congress There are a handful of members of Congress who say outrageous things for attention. Others are in the news because their politics are controversial. Here's your quick guide to a few of the most headline-grabbing members of Congress. Madison Cawthorn  Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), center, leads other GOP lawmakers in a protest of mask mandates in July. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) | Who he is: A hard-right Republican lawmaker from North Carolina who got elected last year to a conservative district, beating a Donald Trump-supported candidate in the process. He's also the youngest member of Congress in decades; he was 25 when he got elected. Why he's controversial: Cawthorn echoes and advances Trump's most controversial claims about democracy and science. As the delta variant raged, he joined other Republicans to protest reinstated mask mandates in the Capitol. Today, we learned that Cawthorn recently used starkly violent and false language to talk about American elections: " … if our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, then it's going to lead to one place — and it's bloodshed." Marjorie Taylor Greene  Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) (AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades) | Who she is: Another far-right, newly elected Republican lawmaker. She's from Georgia. Why she's controversial: The list is long. During the campaign, House Republican leaders denounced racist remarks she had made. She has ties to the conspiracy theory QAnon. Once in Congress, her colleagues in the House kept her off any committees over her anti-Semitic, racist and Islamophobic comments. She recently tried to enter a D.C. jail to protest the alleged treatment of Jan. 6 insurrectionists, and she's tried to downplay the day's violence. A special committee in Congress investigating Jan. 6 is reported to be looking at her involvement. Ilhan Omar  Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg) | Who she is: A Democratic lawmaker from Minnesota first elected in 2018 and part of "the Squad" of liberal, female lawmakers who are women of color. She's the first member of Congress ever to wear a hijab. Here's a good profile of her. Why she's controversial: Omar's mix of far-left politics, her religion (she's Muslim) and her life experience (she's a Somali refugee) have sometimes put her out of line with the majority of her party — especially when she takes controversial positions on Israel. Shortly after she got to Congress, the Democratic-led House voted to condemn religious discrimination in response to remarks Omar made about pro-Israel lobbyists, when she said "it's all about the Benjamins." This week, she's asked Biden to pardon a U.S. service member who shared secrets about who U.S. drones were killing in Afghanistan. And she said this week she wants to "cancel rent and mortgages for the duration of the pandemic," which is not a mainstream Democratic idea. | 
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