Afghanistan - depressingly familiar

The Taliban were always going to "win" the war in Afghanistan. However many thousands of extra Afghan government soldiers and policemen the US-led coalition helped to train and finance and arm, they were never going to be good enough against the Taliban without massive back-up by the Americans, in particular. And here I'm talking about air power, intelligence-gathering, logistics support, encouragement, training, leadership, strategy etc etc. So if the remaining 2,500 American troops are pulled out on May 1, as per the Qatar deal with the Taliban, the consequences are so inevitable and obvious they can be summmed up in one word. Victory. For the Taliban. Without any foreign troops to rely on, the Afghan security forces will be unable to withstand the ferocity of the Taliban who are already moving up and putting maximum pressure on many of Afghanistan's cities. They will take over when the last American soldier has left. This is not a case of being pessimistic about what will happen after May 1. It is the reality. It has always been the reality. The Taliban are not interested in peace except on their terms. Not the Qatar-deal terms. But their battlefield terms. The Qatar deal was just an excuse for Trump to claim he had brought the war to an end and finished America's longest conflict. A legacy strategy on Trump's part that had nothing to do with getting a genuine peace agreement under which the Taliban would be forced to agree a ceasefire. In the Taliban mind a ceasefire is the equivalent of surrender. So despite a mass of clever-sounding phrases in the Qatar deal, the word ceasefire did not appear once. In my view that meant the Qatar deal was a meaningless piece of paper. Trump always berated those who negotiated the Obama-led 2015 Iran nuclear deal, saying it was worthess and wouldn't stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. But then he went on to produce a worthless agreement with the Taliban. The Taliban are relentlessly killing and assassinating and destroying and will continue to do so until they get what they want, total power. Joe Biden has only one choice: he has to say that unless the Taliban agree to a ceasefire, the US will keep the 2,500 troops in Afghanistan beyond May 1 and will retain a mass of air power to obliterate Taliban fighters and strongholds until they come to their senses. Does this sound a familiar solution? Yes, of course, it has been tried for 20 years and failed. On the other hand, if Biden withdraws all 2,500 troops according to the Qatar deal, closes all bases and pulls out American air power, the victory for the Taliban will be blamed as much on him as on his predecessor. Biden must know this. I predict a fudge emerging that won't stop the Taliban from continuing with their violent mayhem against the Afghan security forces and against the long-suffering Afghan people.