Inevitable.
The only thing that showing weakness to Jihadists gets you is more beatings.
Biden decided to outsource authority over the withdrawal to the Taliban. And the Taliban took it. Now they’re dictating terms to Biden.
The Taliban said Tuesday that the group will not allow Afghan nationals to leave the country and opposes any extension of evacuation flights, a development that comes one week before U.S. and coalition forces are slated to depart Afghanistan.
“We are not in favor of allowing Afghans to leave,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters during a news conference on Tuesday.
“They [the Americans] have the opportunity, they have all the resources, they can take all the people that belong to them but we are not going to allow Afghans to leave and we will not extend the deadline,” he said, adding that evacuations carried out by foreign forces after Aug. 31 would be a “violation” of a Biden administration promise to end the U.S. military’s mission in the country.
It’s unclear that all of the Americans in Afghanistan can get out by August 31. Even usually reliable Democrat shills like Rep. Schiff don’t think so. The only people who keep saying that everything is going well are working for Biden or are named Jennifer Rubin.
But barring Afghan visa recipients from going to the airport sets up a direct confrontation with the Biden administration.
As regular readers know, I’m not fond of the idea of getting out just to take half of Afghanistan with us, but the Biden administration made these promises in international forums and then Biden claimed that the Taliban would allow Afghan visa holders out.
Now the Taliban are slamming the door shut.
The humiliation that Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and Secretary of State Blinken have inflicted on America is almost complete.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday that there has not been a change to the timeline of the mission.
“The Taliban have been very clear about what their expectations are,” explained Kirby when asked about public Taliban statements opposing a prolonged U.S. military mission in Afghanistan.
The Taliban have very clear expectations and Biden is obeying them.
Biden has given multiple speeches lying about what’s going on in Afghanistan. But that worked, to whatever degree, as long as the Taliban weren’t directly contradicting him.
Now they are.
Biden has three options.
1. Lie even harder
2. Defy the Taliban
3. Bribe the Taliban
Much of the press (not counting Jennifer Rubin and the Washington Post) weren’t buying his lies before. And trying to claim that the evacuation is going fine even as the Taliban are publicly stating that Afghans won’t be allowed to leave is a lie only Jennifer Rubin could believe.
Biden could push to create an evacuation route through Kabul defying the Taliban. After being shamed by the British and the French, US forces are carrying out some helicopter rescues outside the airport. And he might eventually be shamed into doing that.
But the likeliest scenario is that he’ll bribe the Taliban even harder. Biden dispatched CIA Director William Burns to meet with the Taliban. It clearly didn’t go well because the Taliban declared that there would be no further evacuations.
What the Taliban are likely to want, money and no sanctions, is pretty clear. Would Biden be willing to deliver? Just ask the Iranians.
If Biden releases the Afghan government funds that it blocked when the Taliban took Kabul, that would probably do it.
The trick is making appeasement look like courage. And the harder the Taliban turn the screws, the more Biden’s people will be able to argue that they’re only funding Jihadists to save women and children.
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