Putin is nothing if not an opportunist, and the images of American forces and their British allies struggling to contain the surging crowds at Kabul airport who were desperately trying to flee the country will have confirmed the Russian leader's view that, so long as Biden remained in power, he had nothing to fear from the US.

By ordering US forces to withdraw from Afghanistan, Biden effectively gave Putin the green light to press ahead with his invasion plans.

In every sense, the invasion of Ukraine started in Kabul, so much so that the Russian military build-up on the border with Ukraine prior to the invasion only got seriously underway after the August 2021 withdrawal.

Now, thanks to the utter incompetence of the Biden administration's handling of the Afghan crisis, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and most urgently Taiwan all find themselves struggling to deal with the disastrous consequences of the Biden administration's ineffectual leadership.

Had the warplanes been provided when President Volodymyr Zekensky first requested them at the end of last year, they may have arrived in time to make a calculable difference to the Ukrainian ground offensive, where a lack of effective air cover has slowed the Ukrainian advance.

Biden's dithering over the issue, with the White House initially ruling out approving the transfer of the jets before eventually changing its mind, now means that it is highly unlikely the warplanes will be in action this year, by which time the Ukrainian offensive will have ended.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has told his army to "prepare for war", appears to have reached the same conclusion as Putin.

In such circumstances, the Ukrainian people and the Taiwanese could be forgiven for believing that, just as happened in Afghanistan, Biden's inability to provide effective leadership on the world stage will simply result in them being abandoned to their fates.

The Syrian tragedy started with peaceful efforts by a large segment of the population to secure more individual freedoms, a curb on corruption, and better economic opportunities.

All the current talk about normalization and reconstruction is a subterfuge to avoid the core geopolitical aspect of this tragedy created by conflicting visions of the future, not only of Syria but of the Middle East as a whole.

Iran and Russia are supposed to be allies in Syria, but it is obvious that they are in opposite camps when it comes to the future of the region. Russia wants the Middle East modeled on what it was in the heyday of the Cold War, when it acted as a glacier for the Soviet Union. Iran's ruling mullah, however, dreams of an ideological empire ruled by the "Supreme Guide" in Tehran.

The US, at least under the Biden administration, is content with a largely symbolic presence and, so far at least, hasn't offered a coherent vision for the region.

In an even outer-outer circle, the United Nations is trying to dance around the issue with gesticulations about writing a constitution for a non-existent state and promoting peace talks between the Assad regime and personalities and groups that no longer have credible constituencies.

Meanwhile, the war in Syria is far from over.

Nor are its terrible consequences brought under control. In the past five weeks, dozens of clashes between rival groups, including forces loyal to the regime, have claimed hundreds of casualties. The Russian Air Force has conducted 17 bombing raids on various parts of the country, pursuing its mission of turning Syria into piles of smoking rubble. More recently, it has started using Iranian-made drones in some attacks. According to a United Nations report, 31,000 boys aged 12 or above have been kidnapped from Kurdish-held prison camps, presumably to prevent them from growing up and joining "terrorist groups".

Turkey and Iran continue to exploit Syrian resources of oil, gas and phosphate through black-market networks.

This month marks the anniversary of the chemical attack on three localities in the Ghouta region which, in 2013, killed 1,217 civilians and wounded many others.