After Kabul, hard questions about American global leadership

As Afghan provincial capitals fell at blitzkrieg pace last week, with the national capital, Kabul, the ultimate prize in the insurgent Taliban’s sights, the White House chose the moment to inform the world that President Joe Biden would host a “leaders’ summit for democracy” at year’s end.

With America’s 20-year effort to bring democratic governance, universal education, and human rights to Afghanistan crashing down, the timing and pomp of a statement proclaiming that U.S. leadership would “galvanize” efforts to defend against authoritarianism, fight corruption, and promote respect for human rights globally, seemed darkly risible.

And yet the evidence is just as glaring that the universal values that underpin the tattered and retreating – some even say finished – seven-decade-old Pax Americana remain inexorable motivators of the human spirit. It can be seen in the 70% of Afghan girls attending school before the government fell, or in the fearless local human rights groups that

Broad geopolitical impactBiden’s vision of leadershipEncouraged by women