The key here is that the Taliban never agreed to accept the U.S.-backed “Islamic republic” in Kabul. Never. That was why Trump, in order to strike that awful written agreement with the Taliban that he was desperate to have (so he could say he was “ending” the “forever war”), had to exclude the Kabul regime and recklessly agree to the release of thousands of prisoners. The Taliban were determined to establish the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. That was non-negotiable. The dismantling of the “republic” was non-negotiable.

For 20 years, American administrations of both parties made the objective of Afghanistan policy something that was never, ever going to happen — a negotiated political solution for an inclusive, pluralistic government. The core assumption of that policy was a Taliban that has never existed — a mere political group whose ostensible jihadism was just a posture, whose alliances with like-minded jihadists could readily be broken, and who could be bribed into farcical sharia-democracy by being given a seat at the table.

For 20 years, some of us have been countering that you can’t defeat the enemy without understanding a) that they are the enemy, and b) what they believe. Knowing the enemy is a basic requirement of national defense. It is not a step that can be skipped over because the prospect of critically examining an animating ideology with roots in a religious doctrine makes us queasy. Makes us fearful of offending. Makes us vulnerable to demagogic charges of racism and colonialism.