This post has been updated.

       On March 2, 2020, two days after the Trump administration announced an agreement with the Taliban to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan over the next 14 months, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee weighed in.

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       “There’s a healthy amount of skepticism, but I think we have to give it a chance to work,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) told Politico. “We knew the Taliban is not a nice organization; they’re pretty ruthless. But what’s the alternative?”

       Cracks in the agreement began to emerge within the first few months, as the Taliban maintained ties with al-Qaeda. As President Donald Trump prepared to halve the remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan in November, McCaul warned about the consequences of a “premature” withdrawal, and by the time the Biden administration was executing the final withdrawal from Afghanistan in August, McCaul had shifted to criticizing not only the withdrawal, but also the White House’s engagement with the Taliban.

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       “To blame this on the prior administration, I think, is ill-conceived, because the fact is, this was a conditions-based agreement,” McCaul said on Aug. 16. “And the conditions were not being followed by the Taliban. … I have always said you can’t really negotiate with the Taliban.”

       McCaul is one of at least nine Republicans who have shifted their position on the Afghanistan withdrawal in recent weeks, according to a Fix review, criticizing the Biden administration for engaging with the Taliban, for the chaotic nature of the withdrawal or for the decision to complete the Trump withdrawal plan in the first place. Most have offered few specifics on how the final withdrawal should have been executed differently.

       The U.S. and NATO allies evacuated more than 124,000 people, but hundreds of U.S. citizens and thousands of Afghan allies who wanted to leave remain. The White House is now working with the Taliban to evacuate those who are still trying to leave Afghanistan.

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       When the Trump administration announced its Taliban agreement in February of last year, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called it a “positive step.” Now McCarthy is criticizing the Biden administration for adhering to the agreement and has suggested that the United States should have kept troops in Afghanistan indefinitely.

       In July 2020, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said there was “[never] a bad day to end the war in Afghanistan.” Thirteen months later, Gaetz admonished President Biden for doing just that.

       “The decision to withdraw was correct,” Gaetz said on Aug. 16. “The strategy and tactics, horrific and incompetent. The fundamental error was ever believing that the Afghan ‘government’ and ‘military’ would ever fight for or win anything.”

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       In April, Sen. Cynthia M. Lummis (R-Wyo.) said Biden should have maintained the May 1 troop withdrawal deadline that Trump set with the Taliban. By August, Lummis said Biden’s plan to withdraw by the end of the month had “emboldened” the Taliban.

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       In September 2020, Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) praised Trump’s “Taliban peace treaty.” Now, he says U.S. troops should have stayed in Afghanistan.

       In November, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) told Fox News that it wasn’t “premature” to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. On Tuesday, Biggs called the withdrawal “disastrous.”

       Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) also supported ending the war in Afghanistan. Both have since slammed the way the Biden administration conducted the final withdrawal while offering few alternatives.

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       Appearing at a national security conference in June 2019, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) criticized the war.

       “The American people, they look at what we’re doing in Afghanistan, they look at what we’re doing in Syria, and they say, ‘Why are we there again, exactly?’ ” Hawley said at the time.

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       By the time Biden announced in April that he would withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, Hawley said he should stick to Trump’s May 1 deadline, “but better late than never.”

       When a suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. service members a week ago, Hawley again criticized Biden, this time for the withdrawal itself.

       “We must reject the falsehood peddled by a feckless president that this was the only option for withdrawal,” Hawley said. “This is the product of Joe Biden’s catastrophic failure of leadership.”

       Hawley did not specify how he would have conducted the withdrawal differently.