And what are the plum jobs within this embryonic Islamic Emirate? Are ideological moderates and hardliners, as we’ve heard them called, quarreling over the ministry of Religious Affairs?

“Are you kidding?” scoffs Atif. “They want the positions where there’s money — like the Finance Ministry. These aren’t the Taliban of the 1990s. They’ve watched their cousins and former neighbors rake in millions for the past 20 years. They want some of that.” All of his interlocutors, says Atif, both pro- and anti-Taliban, doubt the regime will last a year.

For the 40 million or so Afghans who were unable to crowd onto those planes taking off in the wake of Kabul’s collapse, the result of this chaos is unspeakable. According to the United Nation’s World Food Program, as much as half the population, or more than 22 million people, won’t have enough to eat in the coming year. More than 675,000 are internally displaced. That’s as many people as live in my hometown of Boston…

Heartless as it may sound, this state of affairs offers the West unprecedented leverage over a foe it could not beat on the battlefield. Adding to that leverage is the fact that the Taliban leadership includes at least one sanctioned terrorist, and several notorious narcotics kingpins.