When Joe Biden announced in April his intention to end his military presence in Afghanistan by the end of the month, he estimated that he would have at least another six months left to ensure the orderly departure of his men before the Taliban took over the entire country.
But yesterday, when the organization's fighters entered the gates of the Kabul capital, helicopters had already been sent to urgently evacuate the last American diplomats from the embassy.
No need to strain to look for reasons for the rapid collapse of the schedule.
The White House announcement from April of its departure in late August signaled to everyone that the tide had fallen.
Waves of defections were recorded in the U.S.-trained Afghan army. Some retirees rushed to join the Taliban camp. Army camps were abandoned. Officials and officials fled their jobs. .
Earlier, Abdullah Abdullah, the Afghan president's representative for the "peace talks" with the Taliban in Qatar, left and hurried back to his country to convince the boss, Ashraf Ghani, that it was all over.
He urged him to apply to the Taliban to share with the representatives of the current government in the Transitional Government checks.
Yesterday it turned out that he was late.
The American failure to predict the rapid and dramatic pace of developments in Afghanistan is of course the tip of the iceberg of the failure of the conception.
The idea, born in Washington after the September 2001 attacks, that with the huge presence of military personnel and advisers and a $ 2 trillion investment over twenty years to establish a new democratic, egalitarian and pro-Western state in Afghanistan with a modern army, shattered in the face of rigid and uncompromising religious frameworks. And a backward governmental culture.
Afghanistan is back in the time tunnel, despite attempts to claim that today's Taliban is not the Taliban of yesteryear.
Even without ISIS-style executions and beheadings, Sharia law has not changed, and in all occupied provinces women have been forced to quit their jobs and return home, and this is only the first step. Based.
Nevertheless, President Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, supported by most of the American people, is justified and perhaps even too late. More than a decade ago, he argued that the chances of success in Afghanistan were slim, the mission impossible, and the existence of an endless military presence in a country at war and at the cost of losing the lives of thousands of American soldiers - was unbearable.
At the same time, the message behind this decision to withdraw from Afghanistan is problematic. Especially when there are those in the US who support the idea of applying it to the military presence in the Middle East as well. The high school is not Afghanistan, and Iran is several times more dangerous than the Taliban.