When President Biden took office four years ago, he sought to reassure global allies and reestablish foreign treaties from which the Trump administration had withdrawn.

Speaking as much to the history books as to the civil servants gathered at the State Department on Monday afternoon, President Joe Biden said U.S. foreign policy during his term had put the United States and its allies on a stronger footing, another effort to use his final days in office to burnish his presidential legacy.

Biden's domestic agenda was the most progressive of any president since Lyndon Johnson. But it was entwined with a foreign policy that leaves his legacy drowned in blood.