As the Taliban overrun areas across Afghanistan, Biden remains unmoved.

WASHINGTON – The Taliban are making rapid advances in Afghanistan, but President Joe Biden is sticking to his guns and insisting on a US withdrawal, despite the fact that just a few alternatives appear to be on the table to halt the militants’ momentum.

The Taliban’s rapid advances, which included taking six provincial capitals in a matter of days, may have surprised some in Afghanistan, but they were not anticipated in Washington, where the US military is completing the departure ordered by Biden by August 31.

Laurel Miller, the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan until 2017, said, “The decision to leave was taken in full understanding that what we are witnessing today was going to happen.”

There is a cold calculation for Biden, who has long advocated for ending America’s longest-ever war: nothing more could be achieved, and the US long ago achieved its stated goal of defeating Al-Qaeda in the region following the September 11, 2001 attacks, though the Taliban have yet to cut ties with the group.

“Nearly two decades of experience has told us that ‘just one more year’ of combat in Afghanistan is not a solution, but a formula for being there permanently,” Biden said last month.

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