Irish Examiner view: Afghan crisis a failure of the West

One year on, the Taliban may be proud of taking their country backwards, but it is a bitter humiliation for Western democracies

There were heartbreaking scenes at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul a year ago as families scrambled to flee the Taliban. Picture: Haroon Sabawoon/Anadolu/Getty

A year ago this week, the West — predominantly in the shape of the US and the UK, although other countries withdrew earlier — pulled their forces out of Afghanistan in a shambolic manner which abandoned people to the not-so-tender mercies of the Taliban.

It was a terrible desertion which recalled the moments when America left allies behind in Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, in 1975. It was a humiliating abdication of responsibilities, commenced on Donald Trump’s watch but completed by Joe Biden, which encouraged both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in their bellicosity.