The staggering collapse of the West-backed Afghan government and the stunning reclamation of the country by the fundamentalist Taliban occupies a strange place in the geopolitics of the 21st century. On one hand, it's the entirely predictable outcome of a decades long "forever war" that's mainly resulted in instability and misery for the people of Afghanistan. On the other, the speed and severity with which the events of the past week have occurred seems to have caught just about everyone off guard.
In the midst of this unambiguous disaster, pundits and politicians alike have reverted to their most base, primal instinct: covering their own asses in the hopes that no one notices they have no idea what they're talking about.
