[PJ] As the U.S.-backed regime in Afghanistan folds with astonishing rapidity before the advancing Taliban, Old Joe Biden’s handlers, ever ready to prove how badly they can foul things up, are appealing to the Taliban to go easy, and dangling before these battle-hardened jihadis the chimerical prospect of acceptance by the bodies of world authority and opinion which those jihadis regard with nothing but contempt. According to the Washington Post, "the U.S. argument to the Taliban is that if it avoids a direct confrontation with the more than 3,000 U.S. troops arriving in Kabul and waits for the completion of the evacuation, that increases the likelihood that both the international community and Afghans will accept the Taliban’s entry into the capital."Do the foreign policy "experts" in the State Department really think that the Taliban cares in the slightest degree for acceptance by "the international community"? The answer is actually yes, the State wonks do likely think that, and it’s just another illustration of how all their Foreign-Policy-Magazine Rand-Corporation Brookings-Institution doesn’t move them even a millimeter closer to understanding the realities of Afghanistan, which is why we are in the fix now, a fix that has been utterly predictable (and I have predicted it, repeatedly) for the last twenty years.
In reality, the Taliban makes no secret of what it is all about: It is an Islamic group, dedicated to establishing the rule of Islamic law in Afghanistan. The word "Taliban" means "students," i.e., students of the Qur’an and Sunnah. That’s basically all they’re about. The Taliban regards the "international community" as largely made up of jahili regimes, that is, societies of unbelievers that deserve no respect and certainly warrant no accommodation. Whether the "international community" accepts the Taliban or doesn’t, the Taliban will soldier on for Allah. If they attain victory now, they will rule Afghanistan. If they don’t, they will keep fighting against the next crowd of infidels that comes into the country.