It should be simple. Pull out what we want to keep. Arm the northern alliance to the teeth and destroy what’s left but first you’d have to pry the State Departments lips off the Taliban’s ass.
“It should be simple.”
Should be!!! But it never has been that way in Afghanistan. Why?
Since Korea we have refused to fight WWII style - TOTAL commitment to TOTAL defeat of the enemy, including taking the war to his allies and safe havens, until unconditional surrender. That is the only way wars are actually WON.