They didn't, but the whole country is cratered into dust anyway and set back to 17th century, so that is a win for the U.S. simply by the fact that Afghanistan is nothing and is totally cratered.
These days, it seems that the only thing Taliban is good for, is to terrorize own women and being pro-Hindutva / pro-Modi cucks against Pakistan. Attacking Pakistan from time to time.
When you factor all this in, it really is not much of a "win" for Afghanistan.
If the U.S. Empire succeed to continue beating Iran further and further back, that is a success. Iran hits U.S. once, U.S. hits 10 times harder, and harder, and the point in geopolitics is to deny the enemy to develop into a so-called "threat".
As long as the U.S. is able to beat down Iran into the situation where Iran no longer is considered a "threat", such as having its universities, STEM scienticts, infrastructure and military decimated, that is a win for the U.S.
The point is: Syria looked much better in 2010 than now in 2026, even if Assad had been in power today, the country is smoked.
Same goes for Libya. Look at them today, totally wasted. Lets say that Gaddafi was alive. Libya today in 2026, is still much more destroyed compared to 2010.
In essence, it's not important if Iran still stands - what matters is to destroy and reduce any current and future "potential" Iran might have.
That is very easy to do, since Russia and PRC aren't doing shit to help Iran in a sufficient way anyway. That is why Empire (almost) always wins.
It's been very long time since the Imperial forces have experiences lots of American corpses floating around in the Western Pacific, including Korea and Vietnam which are the only two places the Empire had to take massive and considerable losses, but the Empire is still standing.
One cannot win against Empire but sitting and just "do nothing" BS. Because as of 2026, the list of countries that are able to resist has truly been shortened considerably.
I don't know if you remember the video from General Clark 25 years ago. They had a nice list of countries that must be smoked, before then move against Russia, PRC and DPRK in some way or another, and Iran is the last stand before that happens.
Sure, there has been some opinions expressed that Turkey, Algeria and Pakistan need to be destroyed as well, but either way, the Empire is working 24 / 7. It never rests, it plans, and it executes its Imperial plans. Taking out one by one. And it is easy to take out one by one, since Russia and PRC are just sitting and looking. Russia is already busy as it is against Imperial NATO forces, and PRC should be able to do much more, but they don't want to, and the whole world is watching right now, so we will see if it will help anyone to just sit and watch "forever". Until they come and knock on PRC' door again, for 2nd round of Century of Humiliation 2.0 downloading. They always come as a coalition, in a group. Never alone.
I guess one cannot expect much of someone who is also looking at the civil war in Myanmar and doing nothing about that either for the most part.
