It seems to me that the issue is that the Taliban was able to generate significant power from within Afghanistan to dominate Afghanistan – unsurprising, they had done it before – and the ministerial government, whatever its ability to apply what power it had or generate power through American connections, was not.

Part of the thing is practical power is very devolved in Afghanistan, if enough local power brokers went with the strong horse an even marginal edge in perceived strength might see cities defecting en masse

Besides whatever religious flavoring, the Taliban were “an alliance capable of sufficiently satisfying enough local powers to maintain hegemony”. Besides “the compradors” who ever was the other side?