"Biden had a choice. He made the wrong one.
Today is the culmination of President Biden’s strategic error in directing the rapid and complete withdrawal of US— and thus all international—forces and the failure to have done the planning necessary to prevent the resulting catastrophic collapse of the Afghan government. Despite administration protestations that the president had no better choice, he indeed did have a choice.
The Afghan forces have proved their willingness to fight, and die in the thousands, since they took the combat lead in 2014. They did so with the training and support of a steadily declining number of US forces, and invaluable contractors who provided essential logistics, intelligence, and air support. They learned to fight with the skills, tactics, and capabilities that we taught them. Crucially, US support provided reassurance and confidence until the fatally flawed Doha agreement called into question whether America had the back of the Afghan fighting force, as had been the case for the last decade. "
atlanticcouncil.org