Thread by @jmurtazashvili

This is exactly why the US mission could not succeed. It did not have good partner.

Ghani was enabled by so many in Washington who fawned over his Ivy league decree and his bad book on failed states.

He ran the state into the ground and discredited the democratic project.

https://twitter.com/FrudBezhan/status/1427001405727023106

His patrons in Washington were in denial or deeply ignorant about the divisive way he governed.

Everyone was happy to keep pretending. Lots of mutual benefit. Afghan people paid the price.

His think tank, Institute for State Effectiveness receives contracts from donors.

While the US terribly bungled its withdrawal, the intervention could not continue.

The longer the war went on, the worse the outcomes were for the Afghan people. Violence wracked the countryside. Districts kept falling.

They had no faith in Kabul.

There was a great risk that much of this collapse could have happened with the small US footprint that existed. That would have been even more embarrassing for Washington.

But the Afghan people have suffered so much. They have borne the cost of these poor choices.

We have to understand the losses and the indignities that have faced the poorest in rural areas and those outside elite circles. We should understand how people are exhausted from so many years of wars and donor driven experiments--whether the donors were the US or the Soviets.

The US presence was not sustainable. It was a train wreck.

But the past two weeks of withdrawal have been a slap in the face to the many who have given so much to the US.  A slap in the face to those who sacrificed for the American experiment. 

Disgraceful and dishonorable.