Right now everybody’s attention is fixed on what is happening in Kabul after the swift collapse of the Afghan government, but soon enough politicians, analysts, as well as historians will turn their attention to the rare moment in history that has just been created as the world’s sole superpower and the greatest, most powerful military empire of all time has been humbled by a rag-tag, impoverished militia. Even if the Americans have not retreated with a red nose, though that is very debatable, they have definitely been sent back with their tails between their legs. And President Biden can “stand by my decision” all he likes for public consumption and optics, but the fact, which is lost on nobody, is that Washington is now running from pillar to post to try to get some order restored in Kabul. That is why while much of the world was stunned over the past two days and regional powers were debating how much time to give the Taliban to prove their promise of moderation before recognising them, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was busy on the phone with foreign ministers of Pakistan, India, China and Russia. This is the same Russia, more or less, that two generations of Americans have made fun of for losing in Afghanistan; and also ridiculed for trying to influence the American Afghan war in its early stages. And this is the same China that America just picked a reckless trade fight with and the same country that America wishes to ‘contain’ as central pillar of its Pivot to Asia policy. Surely the irony of this desperate outreach was lost on neither Beijing nor Moscow. Washington has, of late, realised the centrality of Islamabad in sorting out this mess. But only after first blaming it, for practically the entire duration of this long war, of double dealing, secretly helping the insurgents, etc. It was only after they had tried to win the fight, unsuccessfully, for two decades and dumped more than a trillion dollars into the country with nothing to show that they understood that the Pakistani narrative was correct all along. Now they know better why the Taliban could never have been defeated militarily and why it was necessary to sit down and talk to them. However, Washington is characteristically overplaying its hand by trying to keep India relevant in the latest situation. The side that Delhi banked on, literally, evaporated just as the Taliban entered the city and now their only aim of being in that country, which is to fund and arm an anti-Pakistan insurgency, has no takers in Kabul. It’s about time that the US stopped running from here to there without a concrete strategy and let the regional stakeholders, most important of which is Pakistan, do what they should have been requested to do a long time ago to bring peace to South Asia. *