Afghanistan - what were the options?

I am having a hard time wrapping my head around this Afghanistan mess. The images of people clinging to planes and stories about Taliban going "door to door" are horrifying. But can we put politics aside and honestly talk about what was done right/wrong in the past 20 years?

My feeling is that the current result was inevitable, a matter of when not if. So if the US pulled out a year from now, 5 years, 10 years, the result would inevitably be the same. I think us being there from the start was a mistake - we should have gone in, taken out the folks we knew were responsible for attacking us, and gotten out. Staying 20 years probably made the problem worse in the long run.

Yeah, the result is disheartening. To me Biden's biggest blunder here is not with the withdrawal but with not being honest with himself or the rest of the country the reality of the result. He is an idiot for not knowing this would be the result and preparing for this result.

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Graylight · 51-55, F

No one anticipated this. Biden never said the Taliban wouldn't take over; he didn't believe it was a foregone conclusion and certainly wouldn't happen so soon. his advisors didn't see it; his military didn't see it; the media didn't see it. It's easy to sit back and armchair quarterback, but show me one single person who'd bet that 20 years of support, training, enrichment and protection would collapse inside 11 days. 20 years is a lifetime for some.

Everyone knew this would create a power vacuum and it did. The speed at which it happened for the efforts, resources and money put in was unprecedented. And let's not forget, the 20 year, 4-administration isn't on Joe Biden's shoulders alone. 42 nations sent troops in the last 20 years to aid in the Afghan reconstruction. None of those leaders saw it coming, either.

PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

@Graylight I agree with the first part.

As for nobody could see this coming I don't agree. The goal was always to build up Afghanistan to be stable but always dependent on the US. Independent and self sufficient nations can make their own foreign policy decisions that might not benefit the US. That is never the plan. The problem is no president could change a decades long doctrine in a matter of months.

Furthermore in 20 years the US backed government never controlled the majority of the country and created more a network of city states most of them surrounded by hostile territory. So when the US left they were going to fall. The only uncertainty was the timeline.

Graylight · 51-55, F

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow But it's the timeline everyone has a problem with. I agree, this is not going well. I'm just not sure there's a scenario in which it was ever going to go well.

PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

@Graylight Definitely. And well part of it was leadership too. I mean how many Afghans are going to want to fight and die for basically a crusader kingdom run by an American college professor drop shipped in from Berkeley?