After Afghanistan, the economy is the next Biden catastrophe

The debacle in Iraq. The fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. The failed ‘Bay of Pigs’ invasion of Cuba. You can debate where exactly the collapse of Afghanistan ranks in the list of American military and foreign policy disasters. But one point is surely certain. It is a major setback, and one that will undermine the credibility of the United States for years to come. Here is the real problem, however. It is not going to end there. The economy will be the next major catastrophe of Joe Biden’s increasingly chaotic presidency.

It may well have been a mistake for the US, and of course Britain, to imagine it could ever rebuild Afghanistan by force. Even so, the shambolic exit from the country, handing power back to the Taliban in a matter of days, could hardly have been handled more ineptly.