The true calamity of the Taliban’s lightening victory in Afghanistan is the inevitable suffering of its helpless people. After lurching for decades from one cruel warlord to another, the Soviet jackboot and the American eagle’s claws they have fallen into the hellfire of Sunni Islamic zealotry. They have suddenly fallen through a time warp to an epoch 1,400 years ago.

The 21st century world looks on bewildered; transfixed by a situation that even the mighty US and its rich Western allies could not prevent despite immense sacrifices of blood and treasure for 20 years.

Still more tragically, the Taliban’s almost magical victory will make them more bigoted. Their leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and his acolytes attribute it to divine intervention. So, the exercise of power is unlikely to bring moderation.

“There was no expectation that we would achieve victory in this war,” Baradar said. “But this came with the help of Allah, therefore we should be thankful to Him, be humble in front of Him, so that we do not act arrogantly.”

That humility will be demonstrated by adherence to their uniquely strict interpretations of Islamic Sharia laws. More so, because of the superstition that failure to be severe could bring humiliation and disaster caused by divine wrath.

Pakistan has long protected, armed and trained the Taliban. It expects to continue that folly, hoping for gains that may rattle India and please China. In the immediate and shorter terms, it might score some gains.

But in the medium and longer terms, its kneecaps will shatter under the gigantic burdens of bolstering a fractious unhappy people ruled by fanatics shunned by US, Europe and many other countries.

If Islamabad continues to kowtow to the Taliban, it could become a replica Sunni theocracy ostracized by the world because of the gangs of jihadists hiding within it.

Together with Afghanistan, it will be shunned as a bigoted exporter of Islamic terrorism causing even Beijing to step back because of its obsessive fear of jihadists entering its territory.

Pakistan’s protector China does not care who rules Afghanistan or how, so long as its interests are given privilege and are safeguarded. That said, Beijing does not have the wealth or expertise needed to significantly control the world’s most bigoted Sunni theocrats whose beliefs are totally alien to the modern Chinese Communist Party’s way of thinking and to ancient Chinese civilization.

If Beijing does become Afghanistan’s protector, it will only be a matter of time before it bites the dust as did Moscow and Washington.

President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was callous and immoral in light of the human tragedies inflicted upon helpless people but his motivations are understandable. He has much larger fish to fry in confronting China and Russia.

He may be scorned by hawkish Americans as a weak-kneed hypocrite for handing 39 million Afghans to a totalitarian theocratic dictatorship. Many around the world may gloat at the humiliation of Western military power by ragtag Taliban militias.

But it would be unwise to draw hasty conclusions about the decline of American and allied influence or power. It is well to remember that the West has a combined GDP of over $44 trillion dollars and possesses preponderant influence in global technology, trade and financial innovations.

Admittedly, it is unnerving to see heavily armed US and allied soldiers looking like warriors from sci-fi movies being roundly defeated by turbaned men sporting long beards fighting without body armour or advanced battlefield communication systems, carrying light weapons, wearing tennis shoes or slippers and riding on pickup vans and motorbikes.

Yet, this is a labyrinth of mirrors designed to distort and confuse everyone involved. Biden did not quit the fight abruptly because America was defeated. He simply left Afghanistan and the region to brew in its own vats of boiling oil.

Faced with such massive military rivals as China and Russia, he sees no gain in continuing to the flog the decrepit nags of medieval Islam in Afghanistan’s warlord-infested mountains and deserts.

Rulers who want to recreate a lifestyle of 1,400 years ago in the 21st century when the world is mired in pandemics, inequity, poverty and climate catastrophes are best left to stew in their own illusions.

There is a human duty to soften this calamity’s blows upon the Afghan people as much as possible. But the Taliban may place hurdles to humanitarian aid to keep the people too hungry and weak to protest against their rule.