As the last of the US troops yet to leave Afghanistan, the Taliban have already taken over the country.
Afghan government forces collapsed without the support of the US military, which invaded in 2001 after the September 11 attacks and toppled the Taliban for its support of al-Qaeda.
With the pull-out of the majority of US forces in July 2021, the government of Ashraf Ghani has lost control of Afghanistan like a pack of cards. As a result, both the right and the left have slammed Biden's choice to leave Afghanistan.
Despite about $89 billion budgeted for training the Afghan Army, it took the Taliban little more than a month to brush it aside. Over the last few days, the insurgents seized every major city in Afghanistan - from Kandahar in the south to Mazar-i-Sharif in the north, and from Herat in the west to Jalalabad and capital Kabul in the east.
Twenty years on, the US and its allies in Afghanistan have not only been defeated, but the Taliban have also become stronger, resourceful and even legitimate than it was in 2001.
Apart from blaming Biden for military withdrawals from Afghanistan or accusing Pakistan of supporting, it will be prudent to reflect on why a 20-year war that cost the United States nearly $2.3 trillion and cost the lives of over 6,000 of its troops and other personnel ended in such a tragic manner.
The United States’ invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was controversial in and of itself. Anyone who understands the history of Afghanistan and its ethno-religious diversity would not have put boots on the ground. Even if the US went in, it should have left Afghanistan in 2002 after ousting the Taliban from power.
The Taliban had been vanquished militarily by 2002, and they were morally and diplomatically isolated. That would have been the ideal time to hand over control of the country to Afghans and work up a democratic framework that would incorporate Taliban elements and their concerns.
Instead, the United States engaged in an unrealistic state-building process as president Bush had proclaimed “a new era of human rights and human dignity”.
Taliban fighters sit over a vehicle on a street in Laghman province on August 15, 2021AFP
The US state-building project in Afghanistan included the creation of a sophisticated Afghan military forces equipped with advanced warfare technologies. However, all of the ambition behind the project atop a rickety national structure – one full of corruption. In the past two decades, corruption and extortion became endemic in Afghanistan, aiding the Taliban in regaining popular support.
Despite the fact that almost 80% of Afghanistan’s budget was being covered by foreign aid, 59% of Afghans lived in poverty in 2017. A slight growth in per capita income was seen primarily due to some elites, who became extremely rich over the years, but the poor became poorer.
According to an evaluation by the British aid agency in 2009, only $20 was paid to an Afghan recipient of each $100 spent by donors in Afghanistan. Probably that was a generous estimate.
Apart from corruption, the freedom of expression in Afghanistan was extremely limited in the past few years. The crackdown on dissents caused a major decline in the legitimacy of the government among the civilians. This discontent, however, worked for Taliban as a blessing to gain legitimacy in the country.
The Taliban's stunning and rapid takeover of Afghanistan was the result not only of their battlefield strength, but also a sustained push to force surrenders and cut deals.
The insurgents mixed threats and lures with propaganda and psychological warfare as they took city after city - some with barely a shot fired - eventually capturing Kabul.
Despite being the most formidable side in the conflict, the Afghan Army - plagued by corruption, poor leadership and lack of training, and plummeting morale for years - collapsed quicker than anyone ever anticipated.
Therefore, as charitable as it might look like, the US cause in Afghanistan was not supported by the country’s divided and corrupt governance and security system, which led to the failure of the US efforts in Afghanistan, the graveyards of empires.