Afghanistan fell quickly after two decades of occupation

Biden has his own moment in the ongoing Afghan tragedy

• Elements of the "Taliban" patrol in one of the cities they captured.

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One by one, the insurgents seized provincial centers across northern and western Afghanistan as government resistance receded, and when Taliban militants on Thursday captured Ghazni, the tenth provincial capital to fall in a week.

Then, in what could be a severe blow to the besieged government of President Ashraf Ghani, it appeared that Taliban forces captured the main cities of Herat and Kandahar, as well as Lashkar Kah, the capital of southern Helmand province, according to press sources.

best position

Now, with Kabul in the crossfire, the Taliban are in their strongest position since 2001, before the US-led invasion drove them from power, and there are already reports from Taliban-controlled areas of insurgent attacks on the city. civilians, and forcing girls to marry.

Meanwhile, the Afghan army, built up through years of training and significant financial support from the United States, is reeling and demoralized. In Afghan cities, soldiers have surrendered or abandoned their posts, and in some cases the Taliban has seized American military equipment, including It weapons and vehicles. Meanwhile, American officials have considered moving their embassy near the airport, urging American citizens in the country to leave immediately, and thousands of additional American troops will be sent, temporarily, to secure staff for a possible evacuation, and the administration of President Joe Biden is trying desperately to mobilize regional actors, From Afghanistan's neighbors to the European Union, Russia and China, to form a united diplomatic front amid talks with Taliban envoys.

But the influence of the militants is growing as the echoes of Saigon 1975 reverberate louder in Kabul 2021. According to US intelligence estimates, the rapid disintegration of the Afghan security forces means that a possible Taliban takeover of Kabul itself could take months or perhaps weeks, and the success of the Taliban attack coincided with The withdrawal of the last units of US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces from the country. The White House had initially set the date for the withdrawal to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, which were orchestrated by al-Qaeda militants who were hosted by the Afghan Taliban government at the time.

In early July, the US president scoffed at the prospect of the militant movement "going through everything" and pinned his hopes on a political settlement, mediated between the warring parties in Afghanistan.

More hard-line critics argued that the United States needed to maintain a deterrent threat against the returning Taliban, while U.S. officials and observers saw the continuing instability in the country, even after two decades of U.S. occupation, as proof enough that the job had to be done.

For weeks, the White House defended its decision to end the presence of US forces, a goal also pursued by former President Donald Trump, and supported by most Americans, according to recent opinion polls, as a necessary step whose time has come.

"Look, we've spent more than a trillion dollars over 20 years, and we've trained more than 300,000 Afghan soldiers to use modern equipment, and Afghan leaders should come together," Biden told reporters.

It is possible that the relatively small numbers of foreign forces remaining in the country could have done little to halt the current Taliban advance, notwithstanding the announced withdrawal.

For Biden, the Afghan predicament has been a source of growing impatience, but for a number of Afghans, including a growing number of internally displaced people, the situation has become even more miserable, and the swift evacuations of Western diplomats from the Afghan capital have added to the sense of crisis.

Security of diplomats

“The international community must give absolute priority to the security of its diplomats,” said Michael Kugelman, a researcher on South Asia at the Wilson Center. “But let us be clear: leaving Afghanistan will send a realistic signal that the world has decided to leave the Afghans to their fate.”

How have US leaders deliberately misled the American public about the war in Afghanistan for nearly two decades?

asked the author of The Afghanistan Papers, Craig Whitlock.

The latter, through his award-winning reporting, revealed US government documents that shed light on the failures of war and nation-building efforts in Afghanistan. Whitlock reported that the Afghan state was weak and riddled with corruption, and that "this confusion without a coherent strategy was still better than admitting defeat." The American writer explained that “the interviews and documents, many of which have not been published before, show how the administrations of presidents: George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump have hidden the truth for two decades.”

They were slowly losing a war that Americans had once supported overwhelmingly. Instead, political and military leaders chose to bury their mistakes and let the war drift. Less than half a decade after the invasion, Bush administration officials were invoking similar forms to the Vietnam War. The Taliban clearly still poses a threat, and one administration official later said, “The tipping point came at the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006, when we finally woke up to the fact that there was an insurgency that could actually make us fail." in the wrong direction by the end of 2005.

Nevertheless, Whitlock wrote, “The Bush administration ignored the warnings and went ahead with the war.” At the end of 2014, Obama tried to hail the end of the US military mission in Afghanistan, after years of counterinsurgency, declaring in a statement that “the longest war in American history is approaching.” of a responsible outcome,” but US officials knew that there was no end in sight, and that the Obama administration, as Whitlock stated, “evoked an illusion,” telling Americans that American forces were still in “non-combat” roles, Whitlock wrote: “But the Pentagon He made many exceptions.” Then came Trump, who loudly called for an end to costly US military operations abroad, but authorized the intensification of aerial bombing campaigns against militant targets that, according to one study, increased casualties among Afghan civilians by 330%. Biden, who was in the Obama administration, now has his own moment in Afghanistan's turbulent history, a tragedy that has been taking shape for many years.

The administration of President Joe Biden is desperately trying to rally regional actors, from Afghanistan's neighbors to the European Union, Russia and China, to form a united diplomatic front amid talks with Taliban envoys.

With Kabul in the crossfire, the Taliban find themselves in their strongest position since 2001, before the US-led invasion drove them from power.

• The influence of the militants is increasing with the echoes of Saigon 1975 echoing louder in Kabul 2021.

Ishan Tharoor ■ Columnist for The Washington Post

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