“THE sooner we finish the better,” says Joe Biden. America is focused on “getting this done by the end of the month,” the Pentagon instructs. That cold, implacable yet casual shrug of the shoulders over the fate of millions of Afghans just about sums up America’s complete moral collapse on the world’s stage – that’s if any of us were dumb enough to believe there ever was a shred of decency to American foreign policy in the last 75 years.

However, if America is stupid enough to believe that ‘this’ – whatever this is? the crucifixion of a nation? the abandonment of a people? the disgracing of liberal democracy? a free pass for terror? – will be over by the end of the month then Biden better think again.

What Biden has begun, only history will finish. So far, in geopolitical terms, what’s happened in recent days has drawn a clear historical line charting the moment when the west retreated globally, when American power diminished (and with it the power of its allies, dependent solely on Washington decision-making); when American foreign policy meant betrayal of allies; when millions were left with no option but to flee their homeland yet had no hope of doing so; when terror was watered at the roots by the nation which waged the absurd War on Terror.

The ramifications of the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban as the west retreats will shape this century. Civil war clearly looms. One of the leaders of resistance to the Taliban, Ahmad Massoud, warns just that. “We confronted the Soviet Union, and we’ll be able to confront the Taliban,” he says. His father, Ahmad Shah Massoud – the Lion of Panjshir – fought the Red Army and the Taliban before his assassination in 2001. His son heads the National Resistance Front in Panjshir where former vice president Amrullah Saleh has taken refuge.

Civil war means proxy war. We’ve been here before, with the West sending arms to the mujahideen during the Soviet occupation. The blowback from that, remember, was the accidental creation of al-Qaeda. Hell is filled with circles.

An expansionist, aggressive Russia is unlikely to tolerate chaos so close to its sphere of influence. Are we going to see Afghanistan once again turned into a chessboard, this time for the likes of Putin and Biden to move their bloody pieces around?

And how many fronts could internal conflict have? Islamic State and the Taliban are at each other’s throats – which fanatic will come out on top? Will the West end up in some ghastly zero sum game where we pick a side – one monster over the other?

Afghanistan became the base once for foreign fighters waging war against the Soviets. Once again, the nation may well act as a whirlpool sucking in those from across the Muslim world who want to pick up arms for one side or another – the resistance or the Taliban. May we also see, though, some sort of international brigade movement begin in the West too, with men and women, former military and non-military, choosing to help in the fight against the Taliban? We saw a dry run for that when the International Freedom Battalion was formed to help the Kurds fight Islamic State in 2015, pulling in volunteers from Turkey, Greece, Ireland, Britain, France and America.

In this era of the rise of the far right, though, it’s not beyond imagination to expect that elements of neo-Nazi groups in America, Europe and Russia might well see any conflict as a means to further their aims too. Any international element to a future civil war is unlikely to simply mirror the left idealism of Spain in the thirties.

The turmoil in Afghanistan could well spill over its borders. We fear the Taliban allowing the exportation of terror to the West, but what if terror is also exported to the East? China is engaged in a merciless campaign against its Muslim Uighur minority. Surely, Islamists in charge of Afghanistan will turn their attention to what Beijing is doing. Then what? China drawn into Afghanistan as well?

Clearly, Afghanistan acts as huge destabiliser to the tense relations between India and Pakistan, both nuclear nations. Pakistan’s intelligence service helped shape the Taliban. India’s president, Narendra Modi, is seen as an enemy of Islam. What horror might lie ahead there? What of Iran? What of Iraq? Saudi?

Did America envision none of this?

Think farther afield. How might Taiwanese citizens feel today, with China breathing down their necks, and all they’ve got to reassure themselves is false promises of American friendship, from a nation which just threw an entire people to the wolves?

In Britain we have to face the hard fact that the ‘Special Relationship’ – was there ever a phrase more self-aggrandising and grovelling in one breath? – is over. It’s dead, and with it goes any laughable notion of Global Britain.

The world is being rocked by America’s failure, yet Biden gives not one damn. However, that geopolitical fallout is for the future. Today, the most pressing concern is helping the Afghan people in any way possible. Potential famine looms in the country. Yet western nations are starting to slam the door in the faces of Afghans one after the other. Hungary and Austria say no refugees. France hardens its heart.

What are we going to see unfold in Afghanistan? The executions have already started, women are already being told to stay at home – and we’re just days in to this new nightmare regime. It’s hard to keep shades of Kampuchea from the mind. An entire nation is now hostage to some of the world’s worst religious extremists. The Taliban must be eyeing every young person who grew of age since 2001 – who came to adulthood with a vision of democracy and hopes of freedom – and see them the way Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge saw westernised Cambodians: enemies of their ideology.

But all that matters to Biden is getting Americans out. To hell with everybody else. Would even the debased, loathsome, hate-filled Trump – who set the wheels in motion for the American withdrawal – have acted as disgracefully as this?

Great powers aren’t murdered, they commit suicide.

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