Ex-US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Michael McKinley, has said that Ashraf Ghani was “living in fantasyland” and that he had oblivion to troubling realities in Afghanistan even in the early days of his administration as President of Afghanistan.
The former US Ambassador made these comments about Ashraf Ghani in a recent evaluation report by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
“Former President Ghani was isolated from voices and opinions beyond his handpicked inner circle of confidants. Eventually, this circumstance contributed to the unraveling of Afghanistan’s loosely knit government,” the report said about Ghani’s obliviousness.
This report which SIGAR published in November, has identified six factors behind the collapse of the Afghan government in August 2021.
According to the report, the failure of Ghani’s government to recognize that the US will actually withdraw, the exclusion of the Afghan government from US-Taliban talks in Doha, and the insistence of the Afghan government on the integration of the Taliban into the Republic system are the three primary factors contributed to the fall of the government.
The other three following factors are the Taliban’s unwillingness to compromise, obliviousness of Ghani’s inner circle, and centralization of power and endemic corruption within the government.
