Commentary A sentence in an editorial about Afghanistan in the French newspaper, Le Monde, made me sit up. Titled “The Cruel Abandonment of Afghan Women,” it said: “Their progress [that of the Taliban] since the United States completed its military withdrawal on July 3rd bewilders the experts.” Really? Is anyone truly surprised—bewildered, indeed—by the progress of the Taliban? If this is true, so much for expertise, at least where Afghanistan is concerned. Surely only an expert could make so obvious a misjudgement. My only visit to that country was over half a century ago, and fleeting; but while I admired the dignity and even nobility of the Afghan men, I never thought of them as potential liberal democrats, sitting down to a nice peaceful compromise about next year’s budget with members of a different clan. The then-king, Zahir Shah, had kept a lid on simmering disputes, which his cousin lifted …