IS KABUL BURNING?

Afghanistan, where empires come to die, was the wrong war, or better the other wrong war, after Iraq. President George W. Bush made a perverse calculus and his successors only let the initial error metastastasize. It was to be expected that after 9/11 (a mostly Saudi "enterprise", by the way ) the US had to find Bin Laden. President Obama finally got him. He should have packed then.

Now the world is witnessing a remake of Saigon. The difference being that the Vietcong knew about progress while the Talibans are impervious to change, now. Observers thought that Afghanistan was a failed state anyway, held together by an unconvincing American and NATO footprint. At the end of the day the Afghan army is AWOL and the costly American armements are for grabs, yet again. The Pentagon looks like a house of fools ruled by the unadept.

For the Americans, this unfolding unglorious ending is an embarassing moment, partially of their own making. They listened to a few enlightened Afghans who were totally unrepresentative of a population that remains stuck in yesterday. The few emancipated women and other intellectuals became the predictable CNN props, no one in Kabul and in the heartland really cared about.

Last century Fukuyama could still say with impunity that history had arrived at an end point and that America alone would determine the world's future. Today the world has evolved into a multipolar poker game wherein the Americans no longer have the wining hand.  They will have to accept that some do not want to be in their sphere of  influence. Countries became disenchanted or just uninterested in the former American dream. It will be better if the US gives up on their need to be liked and accept to become unum inter pares.

The Afghan tragedy will have consequences. Disbelief in American savoir faire, which grew since Trump's grotesque tenure, will increase. The humanitarian crisis might be catastrophic...but not for the many Afghans who felt snubbed or forgotten by the Kabul "elites" or just ignored by the Washington clueless chorus around Rumsfeld & Co.  Pakistan is yet again a joker in this new geo-political game. China observes and Iran must decide how its interests are best served. The EU has become mere a "voyeur" again in a world which is getting used to living without Europe.

Western hubris got a slap in the face. President Biden is right to let this charade  end. Some consider his new "hands off" policy a blunder. The fact remains that this war was costly and only benefited a too often totally corrupt group of profiteurs in Kabul. For most Afghans this ending will often be unconsequential. TheTalibans might even be better at governance, as understood by the people who lived under the rule of a puppet apparatus with little legitimity. 

Democracy is a slow learning process. If it is just imposed on a "take it or leave it rollcall",  it will fail. The Chinese know patience and are masters of the slow movement. One might wonder how they will act, but if the past holds a lesson, it looks as if they alone might be a match for this new assymetric challenge at their borders. Russia knows all too well the cost of its own Afghan mistake to come close to the furnace again.  Nevertheless it will take notice of NATO's unrelability when it is considering further steps in Eastern Europe. The Baltic states and Ukraine might get scared.  America needs to face the brutal reality of no longer being the unipolar pole star.  Wherever it turns there are others already, be it on land, in space, in the Antarctic, who are marking their own territorial claims. 

What must Dr. Kissinger think?