The Christian Democratic candidate for German Chancellor, Armin Laschet, today called the fall of the Afghan government to the Taliban “the biggest debacle that NATO has seen since its founding,” and stating immediately thereafter: “It is an epochal change that we are facing.”
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier admitted, at least, that “the failure of the years-long efforts to build a stable and viable society in Afghanistan raises fundamental questions for the past and future of our foreign policy and military engagement.” Such a quick seizure of power by the Taliban “will be casting a shadow for quite a long time…. We must look for answers together in the [NATO] bloc,” he said, as he called the desperation seen in the Kabul airport “a shame for the political West.”
