This was roughly the view of US President Joe Biden, who announced that troops were being withdrawn from Afghanistan because the US had achieved its main objective and ruled out the possibility of terrorist attacks in the US from Afghanistan. According to him, no one had promised democracy to the Afghans, but the crash of the Ashraf Ghana regime is the fault of the Afghans themselves, who are not ready to fight for their freedom. And, of course, former US President Donald Trump, who decided to withdraw troops and agreed with the Taliban on their return to power. If the agreement were not implemented, war with the Taliban would resume, but that is not in the interests of the United States.
The fact that the Taliban was declared the target of the Allied invasion in 2001 and that their influence was completely eliminated, or that the withdrawal of troops and the Taliban’s place in the new Afghanistan looked significantly different in the Trump administration’s view (is another question whether it would be alive) said not. Just as the United States, which has built, maintained and managed itself (albeit with the participation of Britain and, to a lesser extent, other Western countries), has now positioned Afghanistan as a house of cards for many years as a successful example of moving towards a bright future. at least some, though not for too long, it will be able to exist after the Americans leave.
Explanations and excuses as to why this was the case in Afghanistan will be sought for a long time to come, but this is not even the case here. More importantly, the United States, but more broadly the whole collective West and even the idea of liberal democracy, is experiencing a geopolitical catastrophe in Afghanistan. And not just because with such a departure from Afghanistan, the West is losing a very important geopolitical fulcrum from which it was possible to put pressure on countries such as China, Russia and Iran, all of which are now ready to pursue their interests in Afghanistan with great enthusiasm.
The whole of a full range of Saigon in Kabul will undoubtedly force pro-Western governments in various regions of the world to re-evaluate their geopolitical choices. This is particularly true of the so-called Greater Middle East, but in many other parts of the world the question has already arisen as to the value of security guarantees provided by a country that proves unable to defend one of NATO’s four special strategic allies against well over 75,000 religious fanatics. ? And if the skeptics are not shown a clear positive example (such as the successful withdrawal of all Allied forces from Iraq), the domino effect seems more and more realistic.
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