Washington—President Joe Biden will break his silence Monday on the US fiasco in Afghanistan with an address to the nation from the White House, as a lightning Taliban victory sent the Democrat’s domestic political fortunes reeling.

Cutting short his planned vacation, Biden will return to Washington from the Camp David presidential residence and “will deliver remarks on Afghanistan” in the White House’s East Room, a statement said.The address was scheduled for 3:45 pm (1945 GMT or 3:45 a.m. Tuesday, Manila time).Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on the world to work together Monday to “suppress the global terrorist threat in Afghanistan” after the Taliban took control of the war-torn country.“The international community must unite to make sure that Afghanistan is never again used as a platform or safe haven for terrorist organizations,” Guterres told an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Afghanistan.The meeting was hastily convened at the UN’s headquarters in New York after Taliban militants entered the capital Kabul on Sunday, leading Afghan president Ashraf Ghani to flee abroad.“I appeal to the Security Council — and the international community as a whole — to stand together, to work together and act together,” Guterres added.Earlier, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told ABC that the country “can expect to hear from the president soon. He’s right now actively engaged with his national security team.

He is working the situation hard.”All weekend the Democrat, who took office with more foreign policy experience than any new president in decades, stayed hunkered down at the secluded Camp David.As stunning images played out of Kabul, where a frantic US evacuation echoed the 1975 fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, Biden was near invisible.His only statement came in written form on Saturday, insisting that the sudden US withdrawal from Afghanistan, triggering a Taliban total takeover, had been the only possible choice.Then as pressure mounted Sunday for Biden to demonstrate he was in charge, the White House issued a single photograph, showing the president in a polo shirt seated alone at a table while listening to advisors on a large monitor screen.Biden was elected last year on a promise to bring back expertise and responsibility after the turbulent Donald Trump years.Now the questions are piling up and how Biden answers could determine his presidency’s fate.How could the Afghan army, created, funded, and trained by the United States at the cost of more than $80 billion over 20 years, have folded so quickly against the rag-tag Taliban?How could the United States, which has been planning its exit for months, end up presiding over scenes of mass panic and confusion at the Kabul airport, where Afghans are literally clinging to US military airplanes in an effort to get out? Why just last month did Biden insist that such scenes — the dreaded fall of Saigon scenario, where desperate people tried to cram into the last US helicopters — were impossible? “There’s going to be no circumstance for you to see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable,” he said in the White House. As the writer and New York Times columnist Viet Thanh Nguyen said on Twitter: “Having literally been in Saigon for the fall of Saigon, it certainly looks like Saigon to me.”Who gets the blame?Biden had been on a roll until this last week.Defying those who said Washington had become too dysfunctional for bipartisan dealmaking, Biden was celebrating the passage by the evenly divided Senate of his $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. His Democrats were starting to work on a second, mind-bogglingly ambitious $3.5 trillion bill.And it was only a few weeks ago that Biden was congratulating Americans for their Covid vaccination rates—a seeming victory over the coronavirus that the emerging Delta variant has now put in peril.Like the pandemic, Afghanistan was a crisis that Biden inherited.The US public has long lost interest in the fighting there and Trump tapped into powerful isolationist sentiment with a drive to extricate the country from “stupid” post-9/11 wars.Unlike on most other matters, Biden agreed with the Republican.

In fact, Biden’s pullout is based almost entirely on a plan set in motion by Trump himself, who ordered negotiations with the Taliban and, if reelected, had been teeing up an even e

arlier exit.Now beset by accusations of incompetence and betrayal, the White House is doubling down, insisting that the chaos in Kabul is actually the best of all the bad available options, because it at least stops an unwinnable war.“What the president was not prepared to do was to enter a third decade of conflict, throwing in thousands more troops — which was his only other choice,” Sullivan said.“The president had to make the best possible choice he could, and he stands by that decision.”Guterres urged nations to “use all tools at its disposal to suppress the global terrorist threat in Afghanistan and to guarantee that basic human rights will be respected.”Guterres’ comments came as victorious Taliban fighters patrolled Kabul after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan’s 20-year war.Thousands of people mobbed the city’s airport trying to flee the group’s feared hardline brand of Islamist rule.Guterres said Afghans “deserve our full support.”“The following days will be pivotal,” he said. “The world is watching. We cannot and must not abandon the people of Afghanistan.”The secretary-general urged the international community to “speak with one voice to uphold human rights in Afghanistan.”He said it was “essential that the hard-won rights of Afghan women and girls are protected.”Guterres also called upon the Taliban “to respect and protect international humanitarian law and the rights and freedoms of all persons.”Victorious Taliban fighters patrolled Kabul on Monday after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan’s 20-year war, as thousands of people mobbed the city’s airport trying to flee the group’s feared hardline brand of Islamist rule.President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on Sunday night as the insurgents encircled the capital, capping a military victory that saw them capture all cities in just 10 days.“The Taliban have won with the judgement of their swords and guns, and are now responsible for the honour, property and self-preservation of their countrymen,” Ghani said after fleeing.After police and other government forces gave up their posts in Kabul on Sunday, Taliban fighters took over checkpoints across the city and entered the presidential palace.

Militants with rifles slung over their shoulders were also seen walking Monday through the streets of the Green Zone, the formerly heavily fortified district that houses most embassies and international organisations.The Taliban sought to reassure the international community that Afghans should not fear them, and they will not take revenge against those who supported the US-backed alliance.In a message posted to social media, Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar called on his fighters to remain disciplined after taking control of the city.“Now it’s time to test and prove, now we have to show that we can serve our nation and ensure security and comfort of life,” he said.The Taliban’s capture of the capital had occurred, as in many other cities, without the bloodshed that many had feared.But there were desperate scenes at Kabul’s airport on Monday as people tried to board the few flights available.“We are afraid to live in this city,” a 25-year-old ex-soldier told AFP as he stood among huge crowds on the tarmac.“Since I served in the army, the Taliban would definitely target me.”