"So, the question now is, where do they go from here?" Biden posed in a July 8 press conference, according to Fox News. "The jury is still out, but the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”
Kabul next?
Before half of August is over, the Islamic terrorist group has already secured two of Afghanistan’s biggest cities.
“Thursday, Afghanistan’s third-largest city, Herat – located on the border with Iran – fell to the Taliban,” Fox News reported. “The Taliban also claimed to have seized Kandahar City – the country’s second-largest and the Taliban’s spiritual home.”
Even though the Pentagon has not yet officially confirmed Kandahar’s fall to the Taliban, officials conceded that “it doesn’t look good” with no U.S. troops on the ground and minimal aerial coverage.
It was The Washington Post’s resident fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, who called out Biden’s false assurance on Thursday.
"This didn't age well," Kessler posted on Twitter alongside Biden’s claim.
Fox News noted that U.S. officials confirmed on Thursday that U.S. troops are currently evacuating personnel from the U.S. embassy in Kabul, where the Taliban is expected to gain control soon.
"This is all melting down in a short period of time," a U.S. military officer said, according to Fox News, with others calling images of the Taliban’s seizure of Afghanistan “demoralizing.”
Just a matter of time?
According to Reuters, the Taliban already has already taken over 65% of Afghanistan, including its occupation of eight provincial capitals, with three more about to fall, and it was assessed by U.S. intelligence that within a month, Kabul will likely be isolated.
It was further noted by TheBlaze that Kabul could be conquered within 90 days.
And a Wednesday report from Axios described the speed of the Taliban taking control over the nation since Biden began the U.S. withdrawal – slated to be complete by Aug. 31 – as stunning military and national security officials alike.
Biden’s pullout vs. Trump’s
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ripped Biden’s disastrous exit strategy from Afghanistan, dinging the president for “poor planning, poor leadership,” Newsmax noted, and he insisted that such a takeover would have never happened if former President Donald Trump remained commander-in-chief.
"It looks at best naïve and at worst ignorant," Pompeo commented, according to The U.S. Sun. "Weakness begets war, and you can see what weak leadership ultimately leads to."
Biden tried to cast blame for his failure in the troop withdrawal on Trump’s peace deal with the Taliban, but even the pro-Biden media stressed the inadequacy of the Biden administration’s exit plan.
"There was still a way to pull out American troops while giving our Afghan partners a better chance to hold the gains we made with them over the last two decades," The New York Times explained.
And Pompeo impressed how Trump had promised that the Taliban would not recapture control of Afghanistan under his watch.
"We had a conditions-based plan for how we would get our young men and women back home," Pompeo recalled, according to Newmax. "We were going to get our soldiers back, and we were going to make sure that this kind of thing you are seeing happening today could not happen, which is a breeding ground for what could potentially be terror attacks coming from this very place. I'll never forget the president saying, 'You got two missions, Mike. We have got to have an orderly plan and execution of leadership to actually do that, and then, second, you’ve got to make sure that we are never attacked from this place.'"
