Analysis | How Kabul fell

Though the Taliban overran most of the country within days, the road to their final victory started from the agreement they signed with the U.S. in February 2020

The United States seemed to have concluded long ago that they lost the war in Afghanistan. In March, Secretary of State , saying the Taliban would make “rapid territorial gains” once the American troops were out. When Gen. Austin Miller, who was the commander of the NATO forces in Afghanistan, was asked if the Afghan troops would be able to resist the Taliban, he did not say they would, he said “they have to”. U.S. President Joe Biden has never said the Taliban would be defeated. His repeated comment was that Afghanistan “has the resources” to resist the Taliban. And then, there were U.S. intelligence assessments that Kabul would fall within months. What they did not expect was the speed with which Kabul fell. The latest U.S. intelligence estimates said the Taliban could capture Kabul in 90 days, The Washington Post reported on August 10. But the city fell in a single day, without even a fight, on August 15. How did that happen? Though the Taliban overran most of the country within days, the road to their final victory started from. The Trump administration appointed a special envoy for Afghanistan, held direct talks with the Taliban bypassing the Afghan government and signed an exit agreement. In the agreement, the U.S. could not extract any concession from the Taliban towards a political settlement in Afghanistan. The Taliban did not even agree to a ceasefire. And the American focus was on getting their troops and diplomats out of Afghanistan safely. In the deal, the U.S. agreed to withdraw its troops by May 1, 2021 in return for assurances from the Taliban that they would not let transnational terrorist groups operate from Afghan soil.