Hello, I'm Amber Athe, the Spectator's Washington Editor, and I'm here to encourage you to subscribe to the Spectator's American Edition.

If you visit spectator. us forward slash subscribe, you can get our print and digital edition for just $7.99 a month.

This means you get unlimited access to our amazing website and will send you a beautiful

80-page monthly magazine. You'll also have access to our mobile app. Subscribe now at

spectator.us forward slash subscribe. You won't regret it.

Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics and now the Joe Biden presidency.

We will be looking at how a 78-year-old president will change America and we'll be asking if normalcy, which is what he promised to bring, has returned to American politics.

The answer, of course, is no.

I'm joined today by Spectator World's deputy editor, Dominic Green,

and we're going to be talking about the end of the war in Afghanistan.

So, Domney, well, one of the forever wars that Trump complained about so much, didn't end is pretty much over now.

America has withdrawn from the basin bagram.

And there is the, I would say, all too predictable cries from the interventionists saying it's now going to become a terrorist haven and it will be, you know, a lawless

region that will cause America a lot of harm in the long run and that we've let down, the West has let

down Afghanistan. Do you think that's a fair criticism? I don't think it's at all a fair,

an even sensible thing to say. As far as Afghanistan goes, it is like the Irish

joke that if you want to get somewhere, I wouldn't start from here. But Afghanistan is the very

last place on earth that historical precedent would suggest that anything remotely resembling

nation building could be accomplished. This was one of the lessons the British learned twice

over to their expense in the 19th century and didn't seem to inform the United States as they went along

with this act of mad folly. In part, of course, an act of mad folly driven by the democratic

demand of the American people, because after an enormity like 9-11 something had to be done.

...