Fall of Kabul: History as our guide

It is challenging to look at the messy, U.S. exit from Afghanistan as something which is merely about Afghanistan and, less about the United States.

Alexander the Great found what is now Afghanistan to be some of the most hostile territory he ever invaded. That’s about as far as he got. The Soviet Union struggled against the Mujahedeen after its invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s.  The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan marked one of the U.S.S.R.’s most staggering defeats when Moscow reluctantly yanked out its troops in 1989. The Soviet embarrassment also foreshadowed what was in store two years later. The superpower disintegrated in 1991.