1. Afghan resistance leaders, long backed by CIA, have fled following Taliban takeover interc.pt/3ECY74N by @matthewacole, @kenklippenstein
2. @theintercept is often wrong, but it's never in doubt. US prepared #Massoud and his force during the evacuation. I spotted it, but never reported it. The battle map was simple, and the options were limited. Massoud had to reach a friendly border, and so he fought a delay
3. action. Now the ethnic #Tajik #Afghan resistance force has reached the border with #Tajikistan and is preparing the #AfghanResistance. @theintercept's myopic view of the battle space is matched by its inability to comprehend the political playing field.
4. Putin no longer has anything to gain from leveraging the American withdrawal that he found shockingly hasty. Now he's facing a humanitarian and a security disaster on his southern flank with the five Stans Russian satellite states. But just today,
6. For the first time in decades, Russia and the US are singing from the same hymnal. A consummate diplomat was given the task to put this nascent coalition together. Someone well known to the Russians and the C5. While the world and the US and apparently the Intercept were
7. watching the reports of a tiny resistance force being driven from towns in Panjshir into the mountains, Bill Burns put the band together and today US @StateDept made clear that the Taliban were only forming an "interim government."
8. At the same time, there were calls today to give the #Taliban credentials at #UNGA. The US is on the committee and the way it was addressed that may happen. But the Taliban may be surprised to find somebody else is in their seat. 
9. IMO quick formation of federal Afghanistan that leaves the Taliban in control of mostly Pashtun areas would stop the disaster that's certain to come. Afghanistan's rugged terrain is actually a blessing because it creates internal borders that can form the borders of ethnically
10. defined states. With Pakistan's motives exposed, the long game is over for the Taliban. They can survive in a Pashtun region or prepare to be the foreign invader's occupying force. @LindseyGrahamSC @WHNSC
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