It Was Always Going To End Badly

 It's been obvious for almost the entire 20 year occupation of Afghanistan that any Afghan government - and that includes the incoming Taliban regime - lacks widespread legitimacy. One propped up by US dollars, but dollars that largely disappeared into corruption, was no more legitimate than any puppet regime might be.

The rapid collapse of the Afghan "government" is a sign that - however painful and embarrassing - Biden's and (yes, Trump's) decision to get out of there was correct. Clausewitz's famous quote - "War is politics by other means" - is often warped to imply that politic should be ruthlessly Machiavellian. In fact, all military action must have an achievable political goal. What was striking about the Bush Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is how very little they understood this. They operated under the pretense of "everyone loves liberty" when that isn't necessarily so. Afghanis are primarily loyal to ethnic, tribal and kinship groups. There is no "Afghanistan" just as there isn't really an "Iraq." They are fictions on maps that war-gamers in Washington thought could be easily manipulated by simply replacing leadership in capitols. 

It is an undeniable catastrophe for Afghans who put too much trust in us, but I wonder how many really did. I hope we get out as many people as we can. I am sorry for what is about to happen to the women and girls of Afghanistan.

But it's been nearly 20 years. We had a generation to change Afghanistan and Afghanistan shrugged off those efforts in a few days. 

We failed because we could never succeed.  

I doubt beyond the Never Trumper Neocons and those already implacably opposed to him, that Biden will suffer too much from this decision. He will need to follow through on re-establishing multilateral coalitions like he promised. No one will care by Labor Day. Afghanistan will remain a backwards, brutal theocracy. A weak state, poorly governed. Like Syria. Like Yemen, Like Chad, Like Somalia. Like Poor Haiti. Like Libya. Like Iraq. Like Myanmar. Like Congo. 

We can't fix them. We tried. We were rejected. Spectacularly.