The Wall Street Journal reports four U.S. intelligence agencies failed to understand that the Afghan government we were supporting would collapse so quickly. Which obviously reveals all of them believed it would collapse eventually, just not this fast.
My question is the following: If we knew the Afghan government would collapse, wasn’t it also obvious to the Afghanis? And if they knew it would eventually collapse, why would they bother with a prolonged losing fight when they could negotiate an immediate surrender under advantageous terms?
The Afghan government found themselves holding a losing hand. Effectively, they negotiated a plea bargain and got a lighter “sentence” as a consequence.
Hindsight suggests Alamo-style die-for-the-cause heroics aren’t in the Afghani playbook, and our “intelligence” agencies should have foreseen this. “Should have” but didn’t; people ought to lose jobs over these foresight failures.
