Leaving aside the debate about what led to this, the following days are critical. To avoid a bloodbath, the evacuation must proceed quickly and efficiently and it should contain as many Afghan helpers as possible.<p>To do that, the admin must bribe/cajole/threaten the Taliban to wait and let the evacuation proceed. But even if that works, there's a local ISIS branch which has every motivation to make things as bad as possible. American forces have placed themselves in a very vulnerable position yet they must handle this last challenge.