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

Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast.

I'm Cindy Yon. I'm joined by James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.

So today, the Times is reporting quite an alarming headline that the US fears Afghanistan

could fall to the Taliban within weeks. James, this obviously comes in the aftermath of the Western

withdrawal from Afghanistan. And do you think it's happened sooner than we expected, the Taliban

resurgence? I think people are surprised by the fact the Taliban are advancing. The Taliban are not sticking by the so-called deals that they've made in these Doha talks. But I think what is surprised people is the speed of it. Joe Biden was determined that to continue this US policy of withdrawal from Afghanistan, to have US troops out by the

20th anniversary of 9-11. All for irony of this is that it now looks like you could have a situation

where Kabul has fallen to the Taliban again by the 20th anniversary of 9-11. And we now see reports

today in the New York Times that the US is attempting

to kind of negotiate with the Taliban to ensure that its own embassy is not sacked if Kabul were to

fall. Now, despite all of this, I don't mean there is any sign of the US shifting its own position.

Joe Biden has been very clear that he doesn't regret it, the decision to withdraw,

and that, you know, in the, in the, he persists with this kind of quite single swim after you,

that the Afghans need to kind of fight for themselves. I think it's also worth remembering that

Joe Biden has been skeptical of what the US can achieve in Afghanistan for quite some time.

There's a really interesting Tom Freeman piece written shortly after the pullout from Afghanistan

what was confirmed by Joe Biden,

which you discussed is going to visit Afghanistan with Biden in 2002

and a subsequent discussion they've had about that visit

and how that left Biden with a sense of how difficult it would be to

achieve much there and the like. And we also know that the famous conversation that Joe Biden

...