Afghanistan End Game?

It would look like the US role in Afghanistan has come to an end.  With Taliban members walking around with Afghan military appropriated equipment, there seems no doubt that the Taliban (who ever that is) are in charge and will form the next government.  Surprised?

The answer should be a resounding “NO”.  Afghanistan has been a feudal state for a very long time.  Someone is a Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, or one of a dozen others first and an Afghan second.  The society, as a whole, has only slightly emerged from the Middle Ages.  The “unholy” alliance between Afghan men and conservative clerics where throttling modernity and individual rights of women serves to keep the same people (Clerics and War Lords) in power, women serving the every need of men, and most men satisfied with this outcome.  For a dirt poor country, that’s how it works.

Pundits are earning their pay whining and wailing over what the US should have done.  Many points being made seem logical, even if too late to make a difference.  But there is one point not being made.  How did the fall of Afghanistan happen so quickly?  What military, State Department, or Presidential person could have predicted such an outcome?

Would it not be appropriate for President Biden to request Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s resignations for not having been able to predict the length of time the Afghan Government could survive.  After 20 years on the ground, how could the State and Defense Departments not have better intelligence?

The issue is far less the return of the Taliban than the seemingly flying blind approach of US foreign policy.  If the US was flying blind in Afghanistan, where else in the world can the same be said? 

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Tags: Afghanistan, Antony Blicken, Lloyd Austin, Taliban

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