Country. Joining me now, Ali Arouzi Nbc correspondent. Ali, Thank You for being here. To start things off, could you tellrt us the reaction in teher to whats happening on their border . Reporter well, its a mixed bag, jonathan, from teheran. Traditionally iran is ideologically opposed to the taliban. They are suni, the iranians are shia and they never read off the same hymn sheet. As history has always told us, your Enemys Enemy is your friend, and they are an enemy of the united states and iran is welcoming a large swath of u. S. Troops disappearing from their border. And weve also seen extraordinary scenes, jonathan, of Afghan Military Personnel Pouring Acrossta the Border Int Iran in advance vehicles with advanced equipment. No doubt provided to them by the united states which the iranian Defense Ministry will be very happy to get their hands on. Thats the military side of it. The humanitarian side of it is that the iranians have opened up three Border Crossings on this very porous
Happening in afghanistan right now. certainly not by the meltdown by the afghan security forces. as we reported in our coverage of the afghanistan papers, people within the u.s. military knew that the afghan army and the afghan police were unreliable, that they had serious doubts that they could stand up to the taliban once the americans left. frankly, they ve known this foreyears, even though u.s. military commanders have repeatedly assured congress and the public that the afghans were a strong force and could defend their own country. so, no, i m not surprised. i think a lot of people are surprised by the speed in which the taliban has essentially taken over the country in the course of a week. but again, you have to remember, the afghan way of war here is it s common in the past for commanders, tribal commanders, militia commanders to sort of put their finger into the wind and see which way things are blowing, and to switch sides, change allegiances, get bought
Trying to effectuate this with other countries, with the united nations to see that this entry into kabul, which is now inevitable, is not going to be under fire, that it is not going to be a house-to-house, urban bloody takeover of a city of 4 1/2 million people, which, of course, would be catastrophic, more catastrophic than what we re seeing right now. and to get americans out safely, so there were a couple thousand americans they had to get out. there were about 1400 left in the embassy, as best we know, and they have to be ferried out to the airport. they are going to try, secretary blinken said to chuck todd on meet the press, trying to establish intend to establish the embassy at the airport to tryir to keep some of these siv special visas going. some of those can be done outside of the country as well. but to try to have some semblance of an embassy, really
Polls show overwhelming support for ending the mission. i think what is crucial is stop pointing fingers, work together to get americans out of there and to also take care of the 20,000 including families who helped us all these years. we can point fingers later, but we must learn lessons now. and again, i think that it is not the policy that was wrong, i think the contingency planning was inadequate and richard engel is right that we should have predicted that this would happen. and finally, this is not an intelligence failure, this is a planning failure. intelligence community according to people i know at the highest levels in congress were saying right things for months and months. the planning was inadequate. ben and jane, thank you both very much. night is falling on the capital city of afghanistan kabul there, 8 1/2 hours ahead, which means
To evacuate americans and allied afghans from the embassy in kabul. nbc news is reporting that the u.s. is in intense negotiations with taliban to guarantee safe passage. this morning the taliban seized control of jalalabad and captured another key city in the north yesterday. now joining me is ali arouzi, nbc correspondent and bureau chief in tehran. thank you for coming back. any update over the last hour of what the iranian regime is thinking of what is happening? reporter: as we spoke about it before, it ismixed bag. they are ideologically opposed to the taliban, but they are