Source: Foreignpolicy.com
On Aug. 15, the Taliban arrived at the gates of Kabul. By the evening, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his vice president had fled the country, and the militant group had seized the presidential palace. In just 10 days, the Taliban had gone from taking their first provincial capital to preparing to declare a new Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan. The final U.S. plane would depart from Kabul later that month to a chorus of celebratory Taliban gunfire, marking an end to Washington’s so-called forever war.