For months, some national security experts have insisted that, even with military victory impossible, it was worth maintaining the status quo indefinitely in order to forestall the sort of nightmare we’re now witnessing. After all, there were only about 2,500 American troops in the country before Joe Biden began pulling out, and not a single American combat death in 2021. But the status quo was never really sustainable. Last year, Donald Trump’s administration signed an agreement with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. troops by May 2021. As part of the deal, the Taliban pledged to stop attacking American forces, a promise they largely kept.

Source: International New York Times August 17, 2021 00:22 UTC