In October 2020, President Trump tweeted, “We should have… our BRAVE Men and Women serving in Afghanistan home by Christmas.” This signaled the beginning of an accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan. In August, the United States ended its 20 year occupation, promoting the resurgence of the Taliban.

In February 2020, the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement which, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, stipulated that by May 2021, the US would withdraw forces in exchange for the Taliban “reducing violence, withdrawing foreign troops, starting intra-Afghan negotiations, and guaranteeing Afghanistan won’t again become a refuge for terrorists.” President Biden continued the withdrawal, setting the final deadline to August 31st. As US troops withdrew in April and May and military bases were handed to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), the Taliban recaptured strategic positions throughout Afghanistan. According to Al Jazeera, this was made worse by “embezzlement and corruption [which] undermined morale within the ranks of the army.”

This, the greater traditional importance attached to home communities than the Afghan nation-state by many soldiers, and rumors of a Taliban amnesty for ANSF deserters, turned the trickle of surrendering soldiers into a flood. The flood came in July, when the only US troops remaining were protecting Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul. The Taliban captured Afghanistan’s major cities while civilians hid in their homes to avoid the theocratic persecution that they had faced under the Taliban government of the 1990s. In just nine days, the country’s regional capitals collapsed. Kabul fell on August 15th—months before the United States expected, according to the Associated Press.

Panic engulfed Kabul. Despite the Taliban’s promises of amnesty for surrendered ANSF soldiers and disavowal of harsh theocratic laws, thousands of Afghans fled to the airport. Western forces, overwhelmed, turned away many with valid visas, according to the Washington Post. As described in The New York Times, on August 26th, a bomb near the airport gate killed at least 183 people. ISIS-K, an Afghan branch of ISIS, claimed responsibility for the attack. The US then targeted a suspected ISIS-K vehicle with a drone strike, but a New York Times investigation raised “doubts about the U.S. version of events, including whether explosives were present in the vehicle, [and] whether the driver had a connection to ISIS.” On August 31st, American and NATO forces finished the evacuation of 130,000 people.

For nearly half a century, Afghanistan has been embroiled in conflict. For twenty of those years, the United States occupied the country. As Mr. Zachary Montgomery, CRLS history teacher, pointed out, many are “heartbroken for
the people of Afghanistan who have come to rely on the United States,” as they will now face new, complex issues. A relative domestic peace may follow the Taliban’s victory for some time, but it is unknown for how long. For now, it is time to wait and see what the future of Afghanistan will behold.

This piece also appears in our September 2021 print edition.