High cost of allies’ Afghan defeat

The prospect of avoiding a swift return to power by the Taliban and al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan when the last US and coalition forces leave by the September 11 deadline was never promising. New assessments, one by the UN’s top Afghanistan official and the other by US intelligence services, paint a grim picture of extremists on the march capturing provincial strongholds. The Afghan National Army, which the US and its allies, including Australia, spent years training, is showing little resistance.

UN special envoy Deborah Lyons warns of consequences for “many other countries” of “increased insecurity” in Afghanistan. US intelligence reports that the US-installed government in Kabul led by President Ashraf Ghani could collapse six months after the retreat. Previous assessments suggested that with US support from afar, Mr Ghani could hold the line for two years – about the same interval that elapsed between the US withdrawal from Vietnam and the fall of Saigon in 1975.

The UN and US reports say US equipment abandoned by Afghan army units are being used by the terrorists as they advance on Kabul. With $US825bn ($1.08 trillion) spent in Afghanistan, it is no surprise Joe Biden is upholding Donald Trump’s decision to retreat from a “forever war”. Australia’s involvement cost 41 soldiers’ lives, with 261 wounded, and a price of about $8bn. Taliban propaganda boasts of “defeating foreign infidel invaders”. Such an outcome would have serious consequences for the battle against Islamist terror. It is not too late for Mr Biden, in talks with Mr Ghani in Washington, to work to prevent the Taliban re-establishing a base for global terrorism that led to 9/11. Failure to try would betray 20 years of heavy sacrifices.