TEHRAN— August 15, 2021 marks a turning point in Afghanistan, as the Taliban took over the city of Kabul and overthrew a corrupt president, named Ashraf Ghani who relied heavily on the United States.

The story of how Taliban came to power goes back to the Doha agreement signed in February 2020.

Then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sat down with a Taliban delegation in Doha, Qatar, to discuss “how to reduce violence in the war-torn country,” according to a statement from then State Department spokesperson Cale Brown.

Ironically, the joint statement after the meeting was labeled “Joint Declaration between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the United States of America for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan.” 

“The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the United States have partnered closely since 2001 to respond to threats to international peace and security and help the Afghan people chart a secure, democratic and prosperous future,” the joint statement read without a reference to 20 years of destructive war that destroyed the core infrastructure of the country.

“The two countries are committed to their longstanding relationship and their investments in building the Afghan institutions necessary to establish democratic norms, protect and preserve the unity of the country, and promote social and economic advancements and the rights of citizens,” the joint statement continued. 

The Americans occupied Afghanistan in 2001 to “establish democracy” and dislocate terrorists who had been using the Central Asian country as a safe haven. What happened to those claims?

Pundits were of the opinion that 20 years of war between U.S.-led troops and insurgents were beyond futile, let alone waste of trillions of dollars.

It is important to note that Afghanistan’s neighbors and allies of the Afghan people were not important to Pompeo or the Taliban at the time. The U.S., under Donald Trump, only wanted to find a route to flee Afghanistan and cover up its foreign policy blunders, including its wrong-headed decision to quit the 2015 nuclear deal, which had been endorsed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231.

“I would be most interested in getting your thoughts on how we can increase the probability of a successful outcome,” reporters heard Pompeo telling the Afghan negotiating team.

The Doha deal set fighting constraints for both the U.S. and the Taliban, as well as the removal of all NATO forces from Afghanistan. The U.S. committed to reduce its troop level from 13,000 to 8,600 within 135 days (by July 2020), followed by a full departure within 14 months (by May 1, 2021).

However, for the United States, things did not go as planned. The Taliban launched the takeover process on May 1, 2021, coinciding with the withdrawal of 2,500 U.S. troops and those of other international partners from Afghanistan. In the first three months of the takeover, the Taliban managed to achieve major land grabs in the countryside, increasing the number of areas it controlled from 73 to 223 in the rural areas.

The Taliban started an advance on the provincial capitals on August 6, with most towns falling without a fight. Key cities such as Herat, Kandahar, and Lashkargah fell on August 13.

On August 15, President Ashraf Ghani escaped the country, and the Taliban conquered Kabul without resistance; hence, the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan disintegrated, resulting in the de facto control of the country and the resurrection of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Even before May 2021, the Taliban's effective use of online social media, its strategic decision to attack northern provinces, and freely using major Afghan highways following the U.S.-recommended strategy of sacrificing rural areas in favor of defending key urban centers played a vital role in their victory.

On July 8, U.S. President Joe Biden told a press briefing that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is not certain, arguing that "the Afghan Army have 300,000 well-equipped troops—as well-equipped as any army in the world—and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban." Biden stated that the U.S. intelligence community did not believe the Afghan government would fall.

When asked about whether there were parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam, Biden replied, “None whatsoever. Zero. What you had is—you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy—six, if I'm not mistaken. The Taliban is not the south—the North Vietnamese army. They're not—they're not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There's going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the—of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.”

He continued, “The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”

However, upon the Taliban's entry into Kabul on August 15, American diplomats and personnel were evacuated from Washington’s embassy in Kabul aboard U.S. Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters in a humiliating way.

In his first interview in December 2021, Ghani told the BBC that his "terrified" national security adviser, Hamdullah Mohib, whisked him out of Kabul on a helicopter.

When asked what he would say to the Afghan people, many of whom "blame you as their leader" for the current disaster, Ghani said his biggest mistake had been relying on Afghanistan's allies. 

General Sir Nick Carter, former chief of the British Defense Staff, was guest-editing the BBC Radio 4's program that day. 

“What they rightly blame me for, they have a total right to, I trusted in our international partnership and pursued that path,” Ghani said. “All of us made a huge mistake assuming the patience of the international community would last.”

Ghani chastised Washington for excluding his administration from years of peace negotiations with the Taliban, stating that agreements struck under U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad effectively sacrificed Afghans in exchange for a seamless withdrawal of U.S. troops. 

“Process-wise, outcome-wise, the responsibility has to clearly rest with the [American] team,” he said. “We were never given the opportunity to sit down with them [the Taliban]. Ambassador Khalilzad sat down with them; it became an American issue, not an Afghan issue. They erased us.”

Afghans are now dealing with major difficulties such as poverty, insecurity, and a variety of other difficulties that have arisen as a result of the former Afghan governments' reliance on the United States.

The Afghanistan story demonstrates once again that reliance on the U.S. would have disastrous consequences.