MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: Freedom’s foes feel stronger and more powerful than ever after Joe Biden abandoned Afghanistan
President Joe Biden has failed in his most basic task, the leadership of the civilised world. By abruptly abandoning Afghanistan to the rule of the Taliban, he has gravely wounded the people of that country, who had grown used to the civilisation and freedom brought by Western intervention, and reasonably felt entitled to the continued support of those who had made this possible.
They will not quickly forget that, when times are hard, America can no longer be relied on. Nor will all those around the world who had assumed that it was still a beacon of freedom.
Mr Biden has also delighted the many enemies of liberty and proper democracy, in China, Russia and Iran, who will have noted carefully that the US is not now the stern, tough obstacle to their plans that it once was.
This weekend, they feel stronger and more powerful than they did before. The world has grown perceptibly darker and less safe as a result of this headlong evacuation.
US President Joe Biden gestures as delivers remarks on the military's ongoing evacuation efforts in Afghanistan from the East Room of the White House on Friday
There is also a great irony here for all the liberals and wokeness enthusiasts who rejoiced at the arrival of Mr Biden in the White House, as if it were the Second Coming, and who applauded his endorsement of their favourite feminist and gay causes.
How foolish and naive they look now. His incessant woke posturing was crucial to his victory and much-beloved in the great Left-wing centres of California and New York.
But here he is, passively handing over a whole country to the Taliban, the utter negation of the principles such people espouse.
As Afghan women gloomily resume the shrouds and veils they cast off during their brief years of freedom, as schools and jobs are closed to girls and women, and a stern regime of puritan repression descends on Kabul and the rest of the country, this will be recalled, globally and in America, as Biden’s work.
But he has disappointed other allies too. The Nato nations, not least Britain, were left with no choice but to follow the US’s decision, taken in Washington’s interest whether the other countries were happy about it or not.
Britain, whose sacrifice in Afghanistan is one of the greatest, must watch as the work and bravery of 20 years is wiped out by a scowling army of Islamist fanatics. How hollow all those years of proclamations about the alleged special relationship between London and Washington are now revealed to be.
Afghan people sit inside a US military aircraft to leave Afghanistan, at the military airport in Kabul on August 19 after the Taliban's military takeover of the country
Huge crowds are pictured outside the Kabul airport after the Taliban's military takeover
Many in this country have long suspected that the White House in truth cares little for our ever-reliable help and friendship. But we never imagined the cold truth would be exposed so cruelly and so abruptly.
We should be relieved that President Biden has removed the bust of Winston Churchill that once stood in the Oval Office. It is best that even a bronze image of Sir Winston should not have to see how far his beloved America has fallen since the days of his alliance with Franklin Roosevelt. It is not hard to imagine his scorn for such a retreat.
Great nations, such as the US, can and do survive failures and periods of weakness. But to do so they need far better stewardship than Mr Biden has so far shown.
He may be sure that if he and his country rediscover the strength and resolve of former days, Britain, their oldest ally, will be there to support them.