The Spectator magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority. free. Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher.

Welcome to Holy Smoke, the Spectator's Religion podcast. I'm Damien Johnson.

The Biden administration's botched and callous withdrawal from Afghanistan has provoked a humanitarian catastrophe. No one seriously disputes that except perhaps America's befuddled president.

In this episode of Holy Smoke, we look at a crucial aspect of that catastrophe,

one that will be spreading misery and death long after the tragic scenes at Kabul airport have come

to an end. I'm referring to the coming devastating assault on religious freedom in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The principal victims of which

will, of course, be the wrong sort of Muslim. The religious police are already planning to create

a living hell for Afghan women who aren't content to submit to brutal peasant Sharia.

Is there anything the Biden administration can do to prevent the persecution of all but the most fanatical or fearful Afghan Muslims?

It's hard to say, not least because religious freedom generally is so low down the list of

priorities of a confused but opportunistic president

and his savagely ideological vice president, soon, of course, to be president herself.

Say what you like about the Trump administration.

It did take international and domestic religious freedom seriously.

That was thanks in large part to former senator and Kansas governor Sam Brownback,

Trump's ambassador at large for international religious freedom, who was relentless in drawing the world's attention to China's genocidal herding of the Muslim Uyghurs into concentration camps,

its persecution of Tibetan Buddhists, members of Falun Gong, and of course, Christians.

It's worth remembering that Christians make up at least three quarters of all the world's

persecuted religious believers. In addition, Brownambeck made sure that the State Department

highlighted Myanmar's ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya people. Biden has recruited as

Brownback's successor, Russia Hussein, an attorney, Obama-era diplomat and academic. He still

has to be confirmed by the Senate, and you're not going to hear me

...