In the year since the United States’ disgraceful abandonment of Afghanistan to the Taliban, the country has gone down precisely the path any logical observer would have predicted: a medieval, jihadi, terrorist-sheltering emirate has been established.
The U.S. will incur costs for betraying its Afghan allies for a long time to come. But nobody will pay a higher price than Afghans.
The geopolitical fallout of America’s humiliating retreat from Afghanistan — after President Joe Biden followed through on the withdrawal commitment of his predecessor, Donald Trump — is still growing. By exposing the U.S. as a power in decline, the withdrawal gave a huge boost to militant Islamists everywhere, while emboldening Russia and China. It is no coincidence that, not long after the fall of Kabul, Russia began massing forces along Ukraine’s borders and China sent a record number of warplanes into Taiwan’s self-declared air defense identification zone.