The decision facing President Joe Biden in Afghanistan is complicated and difficult, but the stakes are clear.

He can dramatically reduce the cost to the United States in lives and money by withdrawing U.S. troops by May 1 in accordance with an agreement reached last year with the Taliban.

Or he could renege on that deal, which will assuredly lead to a resumption of violence and an open-ended American commitment to stay in Afghanistan, costing tens of billions of dollars and many more American lives.

Most Americans do not want to see the country retreat into isolation, but they want Washington to get its priorities straight. President Biden can start by bringing U.S. troops home.

America’s nearly 20-year war in Afghanistan has cost U.S. taxpayers roughly $1 trillion in direct expenditures, hundreds of billions of dollars in additional interest on the debt incurred to fund the war effort, and likely an additional $1 trillion in costs to care for veterans of the war for the next several decades.

Costs have come down over the last year as troop levels have dropped and attacks on U.S. soldiers paused. But those reductions were due to the agreement reached with the Taliban that U.S. and NATO troops would leave by May 1. If we blow past that deadline, troop numbers, casualties and costs are certain to head back up.

Do we really need to expend so much more blood and treasure in Afghanistan when Americans feel knee-capped from a pandemic that’s taken more than 500,000 lives and countless livelihoods?

Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods are plagued by chronic underinvestment, New York is not sure how long it can keep its subway running, California faced the worst wildfire season in recent history and middle America battles an exodus of jobs and an influx of drugs. Rather than tackle problems at home, an aloof Washington continues to look abroad. Remaining in Afghanistan is the epitome of this toxic habit.

Yet a recent, congressionally mandated report by the Afghanistan Study Group calls on President Biden to remain in Afghanistan, violating the terms of a U.S.-Taliban deal, and missing the opportunity to end America’s longest war. If President Biden unilaterally abrogates the deal, our soldiers will once again be in danger. But proponents of staying the course aver that combat deaths had been relatively low since 2014.

Here is snapshot of the “relatively low” number of lives — 26, to be exact — lost fighting an invisible enemy in the 12 months prior to the signing of the agreement:

In the summer of 2019, an Afghan soldier shot two U.S. soldiers in Kandahar, killing Specialist Michael Nance from Chicago and PFC Brandon Kreischer from Ohio, ages 24 and 20, respectively. Sgts. 1st Class Javier Gutierrez and Antonio Rodriguez were killed together in another insider attack in early 2020. Lt. Col. Paul Voss’s Air Force career began two months after 9/11 and ended when his Bombardier E-11A crashed in Ghazni province on Jan. 27, 2020. Staff Sgt. Ian McLaughlin was on his first deployment when he was killed in early 2020 in an IED attack claimed by the Taliban.

Adam Weinstein is a research fellow at the Quincy Institute. He served as a U.S. Marine and deployed to Afghanistan in 2012.