*Note: I originally drafted this piece immediately following the news of Kabul’s fall to the Taliban in August of 2021. I’ve published it here given its relevance to the mission of Foreign Missives.

The house of cards has finally come tumbling down. Over this weekend, the Taliban shocked the world as its blitzkrieg across Afghanistan racked up victory after victory, at times without even firing a shot, culminating on Sunday with capture of Kabul – the headquarters of the US imperial project and last bastion of its inept and ultimately paper-thin client regime. By day’s end President Ashraf Ghani, a technocrat firmly stamped with Washington’s seal of approval, if not that of the Afghan people, had booked it to a swanky retreat in neighboring Uzbekistan, from which he wished his former subjects the best of luck.

Just as quickly, the thoroughly humiliated US foreign policy intelligentsia and political elite began searching for scapegoats. For President Biden’s supporters and ardently partisan Democrats, the blame falls upon the resolute incompetence of the Afghan Armed Forces, which despite being lavished with arms and munitions, technical assistance, and billions of dollars in financial support, were simply unwilling to face the Taliban threat. For Republicans and more liberal imperialists, the Biden presidency in particular is responsible for the catastrophe and is guilty of not sufficiently committing itself to the occupation cum nation-building project the US had so munificently forced upon the Afghan people.

These modes of reasoning from both factions, while undoubtedly myopic and deluded, are nonetheless understandable from a psychological perspective. To wit, it’s much easier to retreat into racialized tropes of bumbling and uncommitted locals, or the familiar partisan bickering over the proper form of imperial management, than it is to engage with the long and sordid history of the America’s unhinged war-mongering and political subterfuge that have led us to the current crisis. Such an engagement would require confronting the collective cognitive dissonance of the American foreign policy establishment, which has proven remarkably successful at goading political elites and the general public into wars of choice on the grounds of promoting human rights, combatting terrorism, and projecting American power, while proving equally unsuccessful at delivering on any of those items in Afghanistan or elsewhere.

Indeed, the current rhetorical squabbles over the Biden regime’s obstinate refusal to entertain any comparisons of the fall of Kabul to the liberation of Saigon in 1975 can be understood as a manifestation of the American political elite’s obdurate refusal to internalize the lessons of history and contemplate a genuine reformulation of its contemporary geopolitical strategy. Although Biden’s opponents in the loyal opposition rightly recognize the similarities between those two watershed events, they do so only to perform apologetics for the American imperial presence in Afghanistan and appeal for its renewal. Theirs is the choir of op-ed columnists and foreign policy “experts” that for years have promised that Afghanistan could be molded into a respectable client state, if only we would commit just a few billion more dollars, a few thousand more ground troops, and a few more decades of occupation, to see it through.

But as is the case with any junkie deep in the throes of their addiction, one more hit is never enough to satisfy the craving for their vice of choice. To carry the metaphor, the only way the American foreign policy community can kick their nasty imperialist habit is through a committed period of rehabilitation and self-reflection, wherein they fully acknowledge the failures of the doctrines they championed and chart a new course. If there is a silver lining to be found anywhere in this chaos, it is that door has been opened to construct a new American geostrategic vision, to the benefit of both its own citizens and those of the world at large. Whether or not we walk through it, will depend in large part upon the willingness of community to change for the better. The world is watching.