Irish Examiner view: Afghanistan disaster will have consequences for us all

Militiamen loyal to Ahmad Massoud, son of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, take part in a training exercise, in Panjshir province, northeastern Afghanistan, Monday. Picture: AP Photo/Jalaluddin Sekandar

The grievous scenes in Kabul and beyond are agonising from the perspective of pure humanity, but they also mark an event which will have invidious and long-lasting impacts on the abject failure of Western democratic leadership, and a demonstrable lack of competency among those politicians and administrators responsible.

Principal among those must be US president Joe Biden, who has made Jimmy Carter’s management of the Tehran hostage crisis in 1979 appear measured and statesmanlike. 

Americans will not forget his performance, and although they might have wanted out of Afghanistan and their “forever war”, they did not desire a repeat of Saigon.

Rhetoric about “over-the-horizon” retaliation and the effectiveness of anti-missile defences do not disguise the fact that this is a diplomatic and military reversal of the first rank which makes the world a more dangerous place.

For Nato, and the British, the prospects are equally dispiriting. 

Britain has left thousands of friends and allies to their fates while the government minister responsible holidayed in Crete. 

Now there is bluster about rights of free passage and UN safe zones, supported by much tub-thumping about economic pressures and frozen assets stimulating a newfound interest in liberal values among the Taliban’s 12-man ruling council.

Russia has been quick to debunk this by declaring that the greatest impact of financial sanctions will fall upon 39m Afghans and that the new regime will raise foreign exchange by increasing the price of opium and cashing in some of the reserves of newly acquired weaponry on the black market.

What we are witnessing is the decline of the West and it will have consequences as yet unforeseen for us all.