ONE week on from the fall of Kabul and the political reaction remains split between anger and despair. Despair at the images of terrified crowds at Hamid Karzai International Airport, and anger at America’s shambolic dash for the exit.

In the recalled Commons, some of the fury was directed at the Prime Minister and his holidaying Foreign Secretary. By yesterday, however, there could be no doubt who was in the firing line. Just over 200 days into a presidency he spent a lifetime working towards, Joe Biden is undergoing the kind of pillorying only previously meted out to Donald Trump at the height of his excesses.

Consider, for a start, the language used by Tony Blair in an essay published on his institute’s website. The former Prime Minister said the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was made “in obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending the ‘forever wars’”.

That will be the same “imbecilic” slogan used by President Biden.

The Sunday papers were littered with speculation by unnamed Ministers and others about Mr Biden’s fitness for the job.

Descriptions of the 78-year-old ranged from “a bit doolally” to “gaga”, and it was claimed that Boris Johnson referred to the president as “Sleepy Joe”, Donald Trump’s nickname for him.

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The American press have been more savage. Calling the botched exit “the worst self-inflicted humiliation in [America’s] history”, the New York Post described Mr Biden as isolated, feeble and indecisive. Much mention has been made of his stumbles, verbal and physical.

His predecessor wasted no time in joining in, suggesting, not for the first time, that Mr Biden should have his mental abilities tested. “Something is going on,” said Mr Trump. “We can’t have somebody who is not 100%.”

Such is the extent and ferocity of criticism it cannot fail to have a impact. But how much of the blame should he be expected to shoulder, and what will this mean for the Biden presidency?

No-one can have been in any doubt where the 46th President was coming from on Afghanistan. His general hostility towards American intervention overseas was forged by Vietnam. Though he voted for the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, he frequently questioned why America was still there.

In his diaries for 2010, the American diplomat Richard Holbrooke recalled Mr Biden’s anger at the idea the US should stay in Afghanistan to protect what had been gained.

Holbrooke wrote of the then vice-president, whose son Beau had served a year in Iraq: “When I mentioned the women’s issue, Biden erupted. Almost rising from his chair, he said: ‘I am not sending my boy back there to risk his life on behalf of women’s rights, it just won’t work, that’s not what they [American troops] are there for.”

Mr Biden had long suspected a link between his son’s tour in Iraq, during which he came into contact with toxic material, and the brain cancer that killed him in 2015, age 46. In a speech to military families this year, the President said: "We must remember the debt we owe those who have paid it, and the families left behind. My heart is torn in half by the grief.”

But it is the manner of America’s withdrawal, rather than the decision itself, that has led to the sharpest criticism of the President. Here, Mr Biden could point to parties that were as culpable if not more. He was, after all, following the deal struck between Donald Trump and the Taliban.

It is not much of an excuse. There was nothing to stop the new President from ditching the Trump plan as he had so many other of his policies. It was Mr Biden’s insistence on sticking by the 2021 deadline for withdrawal, and drawing the troops down first, that started the panic in the Afghan government and led to everything that has happened since.

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Mr Biden is now in the humiliating position of having to row back on the policy he set out so firmly at the beginning of April. The consequences are already being felt outwith Afghanistan. One unnamed Minister, quoted in the Sunday Times, said the UK’s entire defence and foreign policy would have to be revised if the Biden administration was going to stick with isolationism.

Mr Johnson has to tread carefully here. He still has hopes of a trade deal with the US, and the world needs a strong, engaged America. No other country is lining up to take the lead role in Nato, or stand up to China.

As for Tony Blair’s criticism, some would question whether one of the partners in the invasion of Afghanistan, and a prime architect of the disastrous war in Iraq, should be lecturing anyone on foreign policy.

Domestically, the Biden administration must hope the American public is more interested in tackling the continuing Covid crisis, and the trillions being poured into economic recovery.

The President's reputation as a capable operator has been damaged. That will take time to recover, if indeed it can. Public support for withdrawal had been above 70% before the chaos at the airport. Later it slumped to 49%.

The Democrats are worried about next year’s midterms, with good reason. Mr Trump, and other Republican hopefuls for 2024, are circling.

It has been a long and punishing week in politics for this President. It will not be the last.