Allies embraced Biden. Did Kabul lay bare “great illusion”?

By RAF CASERT
Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — When U.S. President Joe Biden took office early this year, Western allies were falling over themselves to welcome and praise him, and hail a new era in trans-Atlantic cooperation. The collapse of Afghanistan certainly put a stop to that. Even some of his biggest fans are now churning out criticism. From France to Germany to Britain, the Czech Republic and beyond, the disparaging words have come, with one French parliamentarian lamenting how the “great illusion” has been laid bare by the hasty U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the chaos that has followed.