Af-Gone-Istan, Con't

The timetable on the fall of Kabul to the Taliban has moved up to the "days" mark from "weeks", as the remaining 3,000 US troops in Kabul desperately try to buy enough time to evacuate remaining US personnel from the embassy in Kabul.

The Biden administration is preparing for the fall of Kabul and a retreat from any U.S. diplomatic presence in Afghanistan — a stunning reversal of expectations. It's looking increasingly likely to high-ranking aides to President Biden that the U.S. will have no enduring diplomatic presence in Afghanistan beyond Aug. 31 — the date Biden has promised the full troop withdrawal will be complete.

Why it matters: It's a major reversal from even a few weeks ago. The working assumption in Biden’s inner circle had been that Kabul could hold for the short term, allowing the U.S. to stay diplomatically engaged and help Afghan women secure their rights beyond the U.S. withdrawal. The 3,000 Marines and soldiers going in to help with the evacuation will also be gone by Aug. 31, we're told.

Between the lines: Biden is at Camp David this weekend, not at his Delaware beach house. He can relax there, but also has full comms. People can come and go without detection, and he avoids the optics of a beach vacation amid a mass evacuation.

The big picture: The U.S. embassy in Kabul wasn’t just a diplomatic building. It also was a major intelligence center with paper records and equipment there that the U.S. will remove or destroy. Protocols are in place for just such an emergency. Unlike Tehran in 1979, when the Iranian fundamentalists gained access to some sensitive material, the U.S. staff still in Kabul will ensure there’s nothing to gain. American diplomats at the embassy have been instructed to destroy important papers and desktop computers before they leave, according to a memo obtained by NPR.

Despite the efforts to secure intelligence and safeguard U.S. personnel and their Afghan supporters, Biden must brace for the symbolic defeat of seeing the Taliban overrun the space that housed the embassy. That includes the ambassador's residence — and the landmark "Duck and Cover" bar frequented by generations of troops, diplomats and journalists.

The major moment to come: Lowering the American flag that flies over what is essentially sovereign U.S. territory. That's typically done by the Marine Security Guard detachment that's always on post. It's a point of honor for the ambassador or chargé d'affaires to take custody of the flag and bring it back to State or a safe haven.

 

I wasn't around for the fall of Saigon, and I don't remember the fall of Tehran, is was a toddler, but this one I'm going to get to put into context for a long time. We've been in Afghanistan for 20 years, effectively my entire adult life, and it's come to nothing, I guess.

Reports out of the surrounding Afghan cities indicate that the Taliban has captured significant amounts of US weapons, vehicles, and helicopters as well.

It's going to be bad in Afghanistan very soon, folks, but the mission never could have ended any other way.