By Gil Barndollar
The United States’ war in Afghanistan is effectively over. Barring an irrational decision by the Taliban to attack the Kabul airport they will soon inherit, the remaining U.S. troops will quickly withdraw, taking all American citizens and thousands of Afghans with them. Given the utter collapse of Afghan government forces, there is likely to be little further fighting in the near term. But the battle over the 20-year war’s history and lessons has only just begun.
As veterans and scholars of the Afghanistan war disentangle fact from fiction, there is one myth that should be immediately discarded: The idea that absent U.S. withdrawal, the conflict in Afghanistan was in a sustainable stalemate. Those still unwilling to grasp the magnitude of Washington’s defeat are attempting to make this argument. On Tuesday, for example, Congressman Dan Crenshaw wrote that the United States “found the proper balance in recent years—maintaining a small force that propped up the Afghan government while also giving us the capability to strike at Taliban and other terrorist networks as needed.” But there is overwhelming evidence that U.S. President Joe Biden faced a binary choice between withdrawal and escalation.
This piece was originally published in The Diplomat on August 20, 2021. Read more HERE.