Nobody predicted that the United States would decide to leave Afghanistan “on the basis of the calendar, rather than of conditions being met” and the Taliban felt that they simply had to wait for this to happen in order to try and take over, retired British Army Commander, Sir Richard Barrons, told N1.

“I don’t think this was primarily a failure of intelligence. This was the result of a confluence of factors and circumstances, which, in combination would have been very hard to foresee. And it is definitely a failure, in my view, of strategy,” Barrons said.

He explained that nobody predicted that the US would decide to leave “on the basis of the calendar, rather than of conditions being met.”

“So they forgo the opportunity to leverage in a deal between the government of Afghanistan and the people it represents and the Taliban. And that had the effect of emboldening the Taliban movement, who felt that they simply had to wait for the Americans to leave and then they would see how far they could press in achieving a better military victory in Afghanistan,” he said.

More about what led to the situation in Afghanistan and the activities of the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as their consequences, can be heard in the full interview linked above.