If the Taliban made a literal commitment to Biden that they would uphold “rights,” they meant sharia rights, not rights as we understand them in our Constitution or, more broadly, in the West.

It is similarly nonsensical for the Biden administration to burble about the Taliban’s supposed need to “uphold its commitments on counterterrorism.” Sharia supremacists do not subscribe to the same interpretation of terrorism as we in the West do — and don’t even try to talk to them about “violent extremism” because you’ll only make them laugh.

In sharia supremacism, Muslims who attack non-Muslim enemies, whether to drive them out of Islamic-held territories or to pressure them to implement sharia in their own territories, are not engaged in “terrorism.” They are engaged in jihad for the sake of Allah, the mission the Taliban interpret Muslim scripture to command. Indeed, that is why the Taliban would not surrender al-Qaeda leaders to us after 9/11, even though they could have remained in power by doing so.