Taliban enter Kabul with the Afghan government saying there will be a peaceful transfer of power

 

Taliban fighters in the city of Herat. Reuters.

The Taliban have entered Kabul with the Afghan government saying there will be a peaceful transfer of power. Reuters. As US diplomats are evacuated from the city, Taliban forces have surrounded Kabul. Both the Taliban and an Afghan government minister claimed that an interim government would be given control under to command of the Taliban. The Taliban are holding off on attacking the city until a peaceful transfer of power can occur. The United States and the United Kingdom had deployed troops to help evacuate the city but it is unclear what will happen with that mission now.  

My Comment:

This is rapidly developing news story with information becoming out of date very fast. It is likely that by the time this post is published some of the information will be obsolete. But the core of this post is that the Taliban appear to have succeeded in their offensive to take back the entire country of Afghanistan. The Afghan government no longer controls much of anything and are at the mercy of the Taliban. 

There will be winners and losers here, with the Taliban obviously coming out on top. China will likely win as well as they will likely have more influence over Afghanistan now with US power waning. The biggest losers are going to be the groups that the Taliban hate, religious minorities, people who worked directly with the United States and educated women. 

The biggest loser though has to be the United States and to a lesser extent our NATO allies. Our almost 20 year experiment in nation building has screeched to a quick stop and our power and prestige has been hugely damaged. This is a national embarrassment. Not so much that the Taliban took over again, but the way that they did so. With our embassy being evacuated and our troops fleeing with their tales between their legs. Much like Vietnam, Afghanistan joins the ranks of wars that the United States decisively lost.

Joe Biden is a major loser as well. This was his first foreign policy challenge and he did not rise to the occasion. Indeed, he is not even in Washington DC right now. Instead he is on vacation in Camp David. Much like Nero fiddling while Rome burned (which is probably historically inaccurate), Biden was hiding out at Camp David while we lost Afghanistan. 

He also has much of the blame. President Trump had a deal with the Taliban to withdraw last May and Biden broke it for pretty much no reason that I can see. That infuriated the Taliban and allowed them to start their offensive earlier, which allowed the government to collapse. That might have happened anyways but we would have completely our pull out a lot more smoothly. It's an embarrassment that the Taliban are now driving around with our Humvees and flying our Blackhawk helicopters. 

Of course the Afghan military and government had much of the blame as well. The army simply didn't fight in the end stages of the war and it's not a real question as to why. They didn't have a reason to do so. Why fight for a corrupt government that stands for nothing? The Taliban at least stand for Allah, and that is a powerful motivation. But what did the average soldier in Afghanistan fight for? A paycheck. And the Afghan army collectively realized that their paychecks weren't worth it. 

Out of everyone though I feel worse for the US soldiers who fought and died in Afghanistan. At least when ISIS took over parts of Iraq we ended up bombing the everloving hell out of them, along with all other civilized nations. But in this case there isn't going to be a 2nd win where the government stands strong. In the end our 20 year adventure in Afghanistan ended in unambiguous failure...