The Great Game, and Losing II

As absolutely horrendously cynical as it sounds, I'm genuinely happy that my country has, at the very least, the distinction of being the only country to leave Afghanistan after invading when we were asked, rather than holding on and ultimately being driven out in a trail of blood. The Romans might be an exception, but they left precisely because they foresaw that very trail of blood.

The president is speaking in Kabul.
“We’ve got a working partnership,” and so
It goes, for many paragraphs, a show
For any able voters in a lull
In vying for a candidate.  A shame
I couldn’t write a speech for him myself.
There’s little point to praising any health
In any pitied partnership.  The fame
We carry from the country isn’t good;
It’s slightly better than the Russians, Greeks,
Or Persians, Mongols, British, whom the sheiks
Destroyed at Gandamak.  And if we would
Attempt to nip destruction in the bud,
We’d leave when asked, without a trail of blood.