It’s grim to say, but if Trump was still in power, things would not be as bad.

Trump would not have received the support for a total withdrawal.

This is a rapidly moving situation and the exact consequences are unknown, but what is clear, is that, thanks to the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban have been able to re-capture large sections of the country it previously ruled, taking nine provincial capitals in just six days, facing little, if any resistance. The medium-to-long-term consequences of this decision are also unknown, but it is not pleasant to speculate. Some suggest “pictures of sex-slave women and beheaded men” are weeks, if not days, away.

Questions over the US presence in the country were being raised even before the US formally invaded in October 2001. In less than two months, however, allied forces had driven the Taliban from power and built secure, protective bases around major cities. While most of al-Qaeda and Taliban members were not captured, instead fleeing to the Federally Administered Tribal Area — a barely governed region in north-western Pakistan — since declassified papers confirm that the short-term objectives of the mission had largely been accomplished.

The papers read that “bin Laden had no plan to secure his organization’s survival”, because “most…