Britain wants to DOUBLE Kabul airlift numbers to 12,000 this week

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Joe Biden has tonight snubbed calls from Boris Johnson and other western leaders to extend his Kabul withdrawal deadline, despite threats by the Taliban of ‘consequences’ if soldiers remain in Afghanistan beyond August 31. 

The under-fire US President swerved the issue at a Washington Covid press conference tonight, before handing over his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to answer questions from reporters.

But when asked if the US would extend its August 31 deadline, Mr Sullivan immediately deferred back to Biden, who had left the room.

While saying the US was ‘committed to bringing Americans home’, Mr Sullivan refused to  give information on what kind of talks US military bosses were having with Taliban chiefs to diffuse the current situation in Kabul.

It comes after the Taliban today said any extension to the evacuation date would be a ‘red line’ and warned of ‘consequences’ if US and UK troops remained in Afghanistan beyond August 31.

Today Number 10 said that the Prime Minister and Mr Biden had spoken over the phone and agreed to work together to ensure all those eligible to leave Afghanistan were able to, including after the initial evacuation phase ended.

A Downing Street spokesperson said: ‘They discussed the ongoing efforts by the UK and U.S. to coordinate the rapid and safe evacuation of our nationals and those who previously worked with our governments from Kabul International Airport.

‘The leaders agreed to continue working together to ensure those who are eligible to leave are able to, including after the initial phase of the evacuation has ended.’

Mr Johnson and Mr Biden also noted the importance of concerted diplomatic engagement to secure the progress made in Afghanistan and prevent a humanitarian crisis, the statement said.

‘They committed to driving international action, including through the G7 and UN Security Council, to stabilise the situation, support the Afghan people and work towards an inclusive and representative Afghan government,’ the spokesman added.

It comes as Britain, France and Germany all joined pleas for the US President  to delay the American withdrawal from Afghanistan today. 

Nearly 6,000 Britons, Afghan staff and their families have now been airlifted out by the RAF. There are plans to fly out a further 6,000 this week.

French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said he was ‘concerned’ about the US deadline and ‘additional time is needed’. Germany estimated it has 5,000 people still waiting to be taken to safety, with a Foreign Ministry spokesman saying the airbridges should stay open ‘as long as the situation on the ground allows’. 

Despite the entreaties from fellow leaders, Mr Biden has been non-committal, saying yesterday he ‘hopes not to’ extend his current deadline. 

He made a pledge to US citizens that ‘any American who wants to get home will get home’ but pointedly failed to mention his allies.   

Today, after Mr Biden ducked questions on Afghanistan during a Covid press conference, Jen Psaki, the White House Press Secretary, snapped at a reporter for referring to Americans still in Kabul as ‘stranded’.

‘I think its irresponsible to say that Americans are stranded. They are not.’ She also reiterated the US Government’s earlier promise, saying: ‘We are committed to bringing Americans who want to come home, home.’

It came as dramatic pictures emerged of Taliban fighters and British troops, once sworn enemies, working just yards apart at Kabul airport.

Downing Street insiders said Mr Johnson will ask the US President at the G7 meeting not to leave Western allies in the lurch. 

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace have also been in contact with their opposite numbers in Washington on the issue. 

Mr Biden has set a deadline of August 31 for all Americans to have left the country, but UK military sources said another fortnight was needed. 

Asked what he would say if G7 leaders pushed him, Mr Biden said: ‘I will tell them we will see what we can do.’

British military commanders are understood to have pencilled in August 25 as the last day they can process refugees, including former British interpreters, under the current plans before the focus shifts to getting about 1,000 British troops and government officials home safely.

It could mean the last British evacuation flight may have to leave as soon as tomorrow or Wednesday to allow soldiers enough time to withdraw.  

It came as:

The Ministry of Defence confirmed seven Afghan civilians died in the chaos outside Kabul airport over the weekend, with at least 20 killed in the past week; Britain pledged to work with Moscow and Beijing to exercise a ‘moderating influence’ over the Taliban, despite a deep mistrust of both regimes;  Vladimir Putin rejected the idea of airlifting people from Afghanistan to countries near Russia, saying he did not want ‘militants showing up here under cover of refugees’;Tony Blair stressed that Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan has not been a ‘hopeless endeavour’, as he accused Mr Biden of following an ‘imbecilic policy’; Only a last-minute concession by the Taliban and a change of heart by Mr Biden can save the thousands of vulnerable Afghans who face being left behind. 

Speaking to reporters in Fort George, near Inverness, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: ‘The Prime Minister is, obviously at the G7, going to try and raise the prospect of seeing if the United States will extend.

‘It’s really important for people to understand the United States have over 6,000 people in Kabul airport and when they withdraw that will take away the framework … and we will have to go as well.

‘I don’t think there is any likelihood of staying on after the United States. If their timetable extends even by a day or two, that will give us a day or two more to evacuate people.

‘Because we are really down to hours now, not weeks, and we have to make sure we exploit every minute to get people out.’

Furious former generals have urged the PM to continue the evacuation even if the US leaves, in the hopes of getting ‘every last Briton out’. 

‘We are concerned about the deadline set by the United States on August 31. Additional time is needed to complete ongoing operations,’ Mr Le Drian told reporters at the UAE’s Al-Dhafra air base, where France has set up an air bridge for people evacuated from Kabul. 

A Taliban spokesman told Sky News that the evacuation effort continuing in Afghanistan past the end of the month would be a ‘red line’ and would ‘provoke a reaction’.

Suhail Shaheen said: ‘This is something … you can say it’s a red line. President Biden announced this agreement that on August 31 they would withdraw all their military forces. So, if they extend it that means they are extending occupation while there is no need for that.

‘It will create mistrust between us. If they are intent on continuing the occupation, so it will provoke a reaction.’

In a round of interviews this morning, defence minister James Heappey said the RAF had extracted 1,821 people from Kabul on eight flights over the past 24 hours, and another nine flights are expected in the coming day.

He said: ‘It is certainly the case as the cases have been made for more people from Afghan civil society to be evacuated, those names have been added.

‘In reality, the focus is on the around 1,800 eligible persons or UK passport holders, British nationals and the remaining people under the Arap (Afghan relocations and assistance policy) scheme which is 2,275, but there are thousands more who we would like to get out if there is the time and the capacity.’

But Mr Heappey said the ‘hard reality’ is that the effort cannot continue without the US, admitting that not everyone will get out – stressing that people will be able to look for other escape avenues after that. 

‘The fact is we will get out as many as we possibly can but we have been clear throughout that there is a hard reality that we won’t be able to get out everybody that we want to, and that is very important that we start to reassure people in Kabul – because I know that people in Afghanistan are acutely aware of what is being said in our media in the UK – that the airlift is not the only route out of Afghanistan, not the only route to the UK.’

He added: ‘There is a second phase to this, where people will be able to settle in the UK having been processed either at a handling centre in a refugee camp or at one of our embassies or high commissions in the region.’

Over recent days, the President has remained stubbornly opposed to any plan to extend the rescue operation into September.

His stance means UK nationals and Afghans eligible to relocate to Britain would have to escape themselves to a third country, such as Pakistan, from where they could travel to the UK on commercial aircraft.

Such journeys would be fraught with danger. Scores of interpreters are hiding in Kabul following beatings and shootings by the Taliban; punishment for their service to a foreign power.

Former international development secretary Rory Stewart accused Mr Biden of ‘not caring’ about the consequences of troop withdrawal.

He told BBC Breakfast: ‘At some fundamental level he doesn’t really care what the consequences are in Afghanistan, what he cares about is being able to say to the American people that he’s got his boys home.’

Mr Stewart added: ‘The way that it’s been organised has been horrifying, but the fundamental problem was the fact that we chose to break 20 years of investment and betray our obligations to the Afghan people in the first place.’

Mr Biden appeared to push back on extending last night, saying: ‘Let me be clear – the evacuation of thousands of people from Kabul is going to be hard and painful.

‘No matter when it started, when we began. It would have been true if we had started a month ago, or a month from now. 

‘There is no way to evacuate this many people without pain and loss and heartbreaking images you see on television. It’s just a fact.’

He said about 11,000 people were lifted out of Kabul in less than 36 hours and said defence officials ‘hope’ they will not have to extend the evacuation operation.

However in a glimmer of hope that an extension was still possible, he added: ‘There are going to be discussions I suspect on how far along we are in the process.

‘Our first priority in Kabul is getting American citizens out of the situation as quickly and safely as possible. Any American that wants to get home will get home.’

He also said the US government is ‘looking to move our Afghan allies’ out of the country as well, noting that citizens of NATO allies and Afghan allies were amongst the 11,000 individuals evacuated this past weekend. 

Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the Commons Defence Select Committee, stressed the importance of Mr Johnson convincing Mr Biden that the rescue mission should be extended.

He said: ‘Time is unquestionably running out and unless there is movement politically on that cut-off point of August 31, we could see flights for former interpreters, other eligible Afghans and refugees ending in the coming days. 

‘After that, the main effort must switch to the safe withdrawal of our military personnel.

‘It simply isn’t possible to do both at the same time; the folding up of the military mission cannot be done amid the mayhem and chaos we are currently witnessing; in particular given genuine fears of a terrorist attack. 

‘Boris Johnson must get the support of other G7 leaders and present a united front to President Biden. More time must be made available.

‘I dread to think what the scenes will be at the airport this week as the deadline approaches. There could be carnage. We are perhaps fortunate that more lives haven’t been lost and no British troops have been wounded.’ 

The threat of a terrorist attack is being factored into all military plans as the chaos is thought to provide an ‘open goal’ opportunity for the Islamic State terror group to strike British and other international forces.

Military aircraft have been seen dropping anti-missile flares and carrying out nosedive combat landings amid fears that terrorists may try to shoot down an aircraft.

A former British Army general last night said the UK should go it alone if the US does not push back its leaving date.  

Retired Major General Tim Cross, who served in Iraq and Kosovo, told the Sun: ‘What’s the point of having armed forces if we cannot hold a single airfield? It makes the whole global Britain idea a joke.’

Another, Colonel Richard Kemp, a retired officer who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, told the paper: ‘We are one of the most powerful military nations in the world. We should stay until we have got every last Brit, and everyone we need, out.’

The Ministry of Defence last night said it would be ‘impractical’ to secure Kabul Airport and to continue the evacuation mission ‘without the partnership (with the US)’.

Meanwhile, fears have been raised about UK and US troops being targeted by IS terrorists as the evacuation at Kabul airport continues. Fears of an Isis attack on the have prompted the US to warn its citizens not to travel to the site without instructions from its officials.

A government source told the Times last night: ‘We know they (IS) would love to get a suicide bomb into the crowd and take out some Brits or Americans. 

‘There is a serious threat of an Isis suicide bomber. The soldiers are having to keep their fingers on the trigger in one hand while holding a baby in the other. It’s very fragile.’

It comes as Sir Laurie Bristow, Britain’s ambassador to Afghanistan, last night said the UK had managed to evacuate more than 5,700 people, including 1,000 in the previous 14 hours.

And British troops could be given extra time to evacuate more people out of Afghanistan. The Times suggest that the military has now managed to push back the final evacuation date to Friday or Saturday, in order to help more people.

The evacuation missions has also been expanded, according to the paper. The expansion is reportedly due to a rise in the number of people who have come forward with eligibility claims to the UK. 

The figure is thought to have raised from 6,000 last week to around 12,000. Part of the rise is due to the inclusion of Afghan politicians, civic leaders and humanitarian workers, as well as their families, the Times reports. 

Lord Richards, the former chief of defence staff, meanwhile, said extending the evacuation window would ‘undoubtedly’ save lives if the Taliban agreed to it.

He added: ‘Western politicians [are] sleepwalking through this, coming out with all sorts of statements of regret and recrimination,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House. It’s so important that we now get a grip of it.

‘I think there could be an international consensus and the Taliban ironically might well welcome it, because the alternative is some very bad headlines come September 1 when we see starving Afghans, and worse potentially, simply because they don’t have the capacity to deal with it.’ 

Sir Nick Kay, the former British ambassador to Afghanistan, told LBC radio: ‘If you can extend that deadline you can release the Afghan people from the panic that they’re in that this is all going to end within a matter of days and hours.’

Former Tory party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said Mr Biden ‘needs to be told categorically, you can’t go off by this ridiculous artificial date’.

He told LBC: ‘The idea that in the next couple of days there will be the last flights is abominable.’

During last night’s national address from the White House, Mr Biden said it did not matter when the Afghan evacuation began, it was always ‘going to be hard and painful’. 

The President added: ‘No way of evacuating this number of people would be without pain and loss. It is just a fact.

‘We are bringing out citizens, Nato allies, Afghani allies… but we have a long way to go and a lot can still go wrong.’ 

It comes as today Tony Blair blasted President Biden’s ‘imbecilic’ decision to withdraw US troops from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, calling the President’s scuttle ‘tragic, dangerous and unnecessary’ and claiming the move had ‘every Jihadist group round the world cheering’. 

Mr Blair, who was in Downing Street when London sent UK troops to the Middle Eastern country 20 years ago following the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington DC, said Britain has a ‘moral obligation’ to stay until ‘all those who need to be are evacuated’. 

In a 2,700 article on the threat of ‘radical Islam’, the former British prime minister said the exit was not in the West or Afghanistan’s interest as he lamented the likely reversal of gains made during the occupation, with the Taliban reasserting itself across most of the country in recent days.

Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Mr Blair said he has ‘enormous respect’ for Mr Biden, but suggested the President – who campaigned on a slogan of ending ‘forever wars’ and is likely to be keeping an eye on next year’s midterms – had withdrawn US troops for domestic political reasons.

He repeated his assertion that the withdrawal was a ‘serious mistake’ and ‘not something we needed to do’ and said there had been ‘a lot of gains’ made in the past two decades, stressing that the deaths of British Armed Forces personnel were ‘not in vain’.

Mr Blair also issued a stark warning to Boris Johnson that the manner of the US’ handling of the exit indicated the UK could be relegated from the top division of international powers, with reports Britain was largely kept in the dark about when American armed forces would leave. 

He added that countries including China and Russia are likely to applaud the withdrawal and occupy the ‘vacuum’ in Afghanistan left by the NATO powers.

Both the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab have suggested Britain will now have to turn to Beijing and Moscow to assist with exercising a ‘moderating influence’ over the Taliban post-withdrawal. 

Cabinet insiders have suggested the President was ‘gaga’ and ‘doolally’ for withdrawing so quickly, while the Prime Minister has allegedly privately referred to Mr Biden as ‘Sleepy Joe’, the nickname coined by Donald Trump. Mr Johnson also allegedly remarked Britain ‘would be better off with Trump’ – allegations branded ‘categorically untrue’ by Downing Street. 

‘For Britain, out of Europe and suffering the end of the Afghanistan mission by our greatest ally with little or no consultation, we have serious reflection to do,’ said Mr Blair. ‘We don’t see it yet, but we are at risk of relegation to the second division of global powers.’ 

His comments come as the US President signalled he wanted evacuations from Kabul airport completed by the end of the month as he prepares to withdraw all American troops – a move that would likely force Britain to wrap up its operation at the same time. 

Mr Blair told Sky News on Sunday: ‘I’ve enormous respect for Joe Biden, I’ve known him for many years – he is a good man and he’s a decent man. But on the other hand … I think it is important to realise this was not something we needed to do.

‘I understand the political pressure but our footprint had really been reduced to a much smaller level, and by the end of 2019 we were in a situation whereby we could have held firm for some considerable time and helped the Afghan people through the next stages of their progress.’

Mr Blair said there had been ‘a lot of gains’ made in the past two decades and stressed that the deaths of UK armed forces personnel were ‘not in vain’.

He added: ‘Our troops were fantastic in Afghanistan, and a lot of them made the ultimate sacrifice, a lot of them were injured. And it’s really important that they know that this wasn’t a hopeless endeavour, and it wasn’t a bad cause.

‘What I’d say to them is the sacrifice was not in vain, that those 20 years matter. What we achieved in Afghanistan matters today. I think it’s really important that people realise this, the story of Afghanistan, the story of the Taliban takeover, it’s not over. It’s tragic what’s happened, I think it’s unnecessary, I think we’ve made a serious mistake in doing this in this way, but it isn’t over yet.’

In his article, Mr Blair urged for there to be ‘no repetition of arbitrary deadlines’ – a reference to Washington’s Doha agreement with the Taliban, committing to vacate Afghanistan in time for the 9/11 anniversary – in the rescue mission.

‘We must evacuate and give sanctuary to those to whom we have responsibility – those Afghans who helped us and stood by us and have a right to demand we stand by them,’ said the former Labour Party leader.

‘There must be no repetition of arbitrary deadlines. We have a moral obligation to keep at it until all those who need to be are evacuated. And we should do so not grudgingly but out of a deep sense of humanity and responsibility.’

Mr Blair defended his own decision making in 2001 when he worked with former US president George Bush and NATO allies to avenge the New York World Trade Centre attack. After the Taliban refused to evict al Qaeda, the terror group that masterminded the hijacking of the planes in 2001, Mr Blair said Western allies, who feared worse attacks were to come, felt there was ‘no safer alternative’ than to strike.

He continued: ‘There is no doubt that in the years that followed we made mistakes, some serious. But the reaction to our mistakes have been unfortunately further mistakes.

‘Today we are in a mood which seems to regard the bringing of democracy as a utopian delusion and intervention virtually of any sort as a fool’s errand. The world is now uncertain of where the West stands because it is so obvious that the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan in this way was driven not by grand strategy but by politics.

‘We didn’t need to do it. We chose to do it.

‘We did it in obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending ‘the forever wars’, as if our engagement in 2021 was remotely comparable to our commitment 20 or even 10 years ago, in circumstances in which troop numbers had declined to a minimum and no allied soldier had lost their life in combat for 18 months.’

The former Middle East envoy said that, although ‘imperfect’, the ‘real gains over the past 20 years’ were likely to be lost following the Taliban victory, including advances in living standards, education particularly of girls, and other freedoms.

He called for the UK, in its role as president of the G7 this year, to help coordinate an international response to ‘hold the new regime to account’.

The UK Government has been working diplomatically to ensure there is no unilateral recognition of a Taliban government in Afghanistan, with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab refusing to rule out applying sanctions if the militants renege on their promise to be more inclusive, especially in their attitudes towards women, than when last in control.

Mr Blair said: ‘We need to draw up a list of incentives, sanctions, actions we can take including to protect the civilian population so the Taliban understand their actions will have consequences. This is urgent. The disarray of the past weeks needs to be replaced by something resembling coherence and with a plan that is credible and realistic.’

The Prime Minister’s feelings about America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan have been variously described by sources as ‘furious’, ‘a betrayal’ and ‘let down’.

Downing Street dismisses the claims – it is in neither country’s interests to stoke tensions when the future of Afghanistan hangs in the balance – but there is little question that the UK has been left exposed by the speed of Washington’s pull-out.

No 10 also denies claims that the Prime Minister was disappointed by Mr Biden’s victory in the Presidential elections and had declared that it would have been ‘better’ if Mr Trump had won a second term, and say it is ‘categorically untrue’ that Mr Johnson employs the President’s derogatory nickname of Sleepy Joe during jocular conversations.

However, one minister denounced US isolationism and warned the Government would have to ‘revisit’ the recent review on defence and foreign policy because the US was no longer a reliable ally.

They told the Sunday Times: ‘America has just signalled to the world that they are not that keen on playing a global role. The implications of that are absolutely huge. We need to get the integrated review out and reread it. We are going to have to do a hard-nosed revisit on all our assumptions and policies. 

‘The US had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the First World War. They turned up late for the Second World War and now they are cutting and running in Afghanistan.’

Speaking to Sky News today, Mr Blair said ‘the only people really cheering this decision are the people hostile to Western interests’ – listing among them the Chinese and Russian regimes.  

‘We’ve got to realise we were in a situation where… we could’ve managed the situation,’ he said. ‘The problem with what’s happened now is that it’s not just about the Afghan people and our obligation to them… it’s about us and our security. 

‘Because you’ve now got this group back in charge of Afghanistan. They will give protection and succour to al Qaeda, you’ve got ISIS (Islamic State) already in the country trying to operate at the same time. You look round the world and the only people really cheering this decision are the people hostile to Western interests.’

Mr Blair said the UK and its G7 allies will need to come up with a ‘strategy’ to deal with the Taliban regime to make sure ‘we don’t end up with a security threat’.

He added: ‘We should be putting together the leading countries who are part of this coalition in the first place and who have supported Afghanistan in the last 20 years and we need to work out what our strategy and tactics are going to be in respect of the Taliban government.

‘We need to be drawing up a list of incentives and sanctions and other things we can do in order to use the leverage we have, which is not insignificant. The Taliban will find that governing is a lot harder than they thought. The population of Afghanistan is different.

‘There’s going to be a lot that we can still do but it’s important that we mobilise now after the disarray frankly of the last few weeks, that we mobilise as the leading countries and make it clear that we still understand we have an obligation in our own interests to try and resolve this situation and to put as much pressure on the government in Afghanistan as possible to make sure that we don’t end up either with a security threat in play for us or with the Afghan people losing the gains they’ve made over the last 20 years.’

Across Whitehall and in British embassies around the world, officials and diplomats are adjusting to the fact that Mr Biden has adopted an America First policy every bit as isolationist as his predecessor’s.

There are also whispered concerns that the 78-year-old might be, in the words of one Government source, ‘a bit doolally’ – unable to exert full executive grip on the White House and with a world view forged decades ago and out of step with the demands of leadership in the 2020s. 

The Times claimed yesterday that Mr Johnson finds Mr Biden ‘lightweight and inward-looking’.

Observers of the two men’s relationship believe that there is a degree of wariness, with Mr Biden regarding Mr Johnson as a ‘mini-Trump’ because of his personality-driven style of politics and the pair talking far less frequently than Mr Johnson and Mr Trump did.

There are also policy differences, with Washington reluctant to accede to the UK’s demand to ramp up spending on ‘green’ policies ahead of the COP26 climate change summit being hosted by the UK in November. 

Of particular irritation in London during the Afghan endgame has been the fact that British military commanders have been cut out of discussions between the US and the Taliban.

But a No 10 source said yesterday that Mr Johnson had not expressed any anger over the US withdrawal, and said the two men had enjoyed a ‘warm and constructive’ phone conversation on Tuesday evening.

A Downing Street spokesman said: ‘These claims are categorically untrue. The Prime Minister has not criticised President Biden, and they have a very strong working relationship. 

The President’s first call to a leader outside of North America after his election win was to the Prime Minister. 

They have worked together on a range of issues, including at the recent G7, where they secured an additional one billion Covid vaccine doses for developing countries, and signed the Carbis Bay Declaration to improve global health co-operation and prevent future pandemics’.

President Biden cancelled plans to spend the weekend at his home in Delaware. Instead he is meeting his national security team ‘to hear intelligence, security and diplomatic updates on the evolving situation in Afghanistan,’ the White House said.

Lord Ricketts, who served as the Government’s first national security adviser from 2010 to 2012 under former prime minister David Cameron, said the UK will need to ‘rethink’ its foreign policy stance following the United States’ handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Speaking to Times Radio, he said: ‘It has been a humiliating period for the UK. I’m afraid we’ve learnt that (US President) Joe Biden has put US politics ahead of NATO alliance solidarity and Britain hasn’t counted for much in that decision, if anything at all.

‘The hard fact is we are going to need to continue to work with the Americans in all sorts of areas and this has been a difficult experience, but we need to bring the Americans back to working with their allies, taking account of our views.

‘But we can’t somehow invent a foreign policy without the Americans so we’ve got to take a deep breath and do some frank talking to Joe Biden and then get back to work with him.’

The former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee continued: ‘We need to rethink a lot of that rhetoric in the integrated review published by the Government a few months ago about Britain as an independent sovereign operator, turning the dial on international crises.

‘We have shown actually that we are pretty impotent in a situation where the Americans take a decision – we have little choice but to follow.’

TONY BLAIR: America’s retreat is imbecilic – and tells our enemies we don’t have any interests or values worth defending

By TONY BLAIR FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

The abandonment of Afghanistan and its people is tragic, dangerous, unnecessary, not in their interests and not in ours.

In the aftermath of the decision to return the country to the same group from which the carnage of 9/11 arose, and in a manner that seems almost designed to parade our humiliation, the question that allies and enemies alike pose is – has the West lost its strategic will?

By that I mean, is it able to learn from experience, think strategically, define our interests strategically and on that basis commit strategically? Is ‘long term’ a concept we are still capable of grasping? Is the nature of our politics now inconsistent with asserting our traditional global leadership role? And do we care?

As leader of our country when we decided to join America in removing the Taliban from power in 2001, and who saw the high hopes we had of what we could achieve for the people and the world subside under the weight of bitter reality, I know better than most how difficult are the decisions of leadership and how easy it is to be critical and how hard to be constructive.

Twenty years ago, following the slaughter of 3,000 people on US soil on September 11, 2001, the world was in turmoil. The attacks were organised out of Afghanistan by Al Qaeda, an Islamist terrorist group given protection and assistance by the Taliban.

We forget this now, but the world was spinning on its axis. We feared further attacks, possibly worse. The Taliban were given an ultimatum: yield up the Al Qaeda leadership or be removed from power.

They refused. We felt there was no safer alternative for our security than keeping our word. We held out the prospect, backed by substantial commitment, of turning Afghanistan from a failed terror state into a functioning democracy on the mend. It may have been a misplaced ambition, but it was not an ignoble one.

There is no doubt that in the years that followed we made mistakes, some serious. But the reaction to our mistakes has been, unfortunately, further mistakes.

Today we are in a mood that seems to regard the bringing of democracy as a utopian delusion and intervention virtually of any sort as a fool’s errand. The world is now uncertain of where the West stands because it is so obvious that the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was driven not by grand strategy but by politics.

We didn’t need to do it. We chose to do it. We did it in obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending ‘the forever wars’, as if our engagement in 2021 was remotely comparable to our commitment 20 or even ten years ago, in circumstances in which troop numbers had declined to a minimum and no allied soldier had lost their life in combat for 18 months.

We did it in the knowledge that though worse than imperfect, and though immensely fragile, there were real gains over the past 20 years. And for anyone who disputes that, read the heartbreaking laments from every section of Afghan society as to what they fear will now be lost. Gains in living standards, education, particularly of girls, gains in freedom. Not nearly what we hoped or wanted. But not nothing. Something worth defending. Worth protecting.

We withdrew because our politics seemed to demand it. And that’s the worry of our allies – and the source of rejoicing in those who wish us ill. They think Western politics is broken. Unsurprisingly, therefore, friends and foes ask: is this a moment when the West is in epoch-changing retreat?

I can’t believe we are in such retreat, but we are going to have to give tangible demonstration that we are not. This demands an immediate response in respect of Afghanistan. And then measured and clear articulation of where we stand for the future. We need to work out a means of dealing with the Taliban and exerting maximum pressure on them.

This is not as empty as it seems. We have given up much of our leverage, but we retain some. The UK as the current G7 chair should convene a Contact Group of the G7 and other key nations and commit to coordinating help to the Afghan people and holding the new regime to account. Nato – which has had 8,000 troops still in Afghanistan alongside the US – and Europe should be brought fully into co-operation under this grouping.

We need to draw up a list of incentives, sanctions and actions we can take, including to protect the civilian population so the Taliban understand their actions will have consequences.

But then we must answer that overarching question. What are our strategic interests and are we prepared any longer to commit to upholding them? Afghanistan was hard to govern all through the 20 years of our time there. And of course there were mistakes and miscalculations. But we shouldn’t dupe ourselves into thinking it was ever going to be anything other than tough when there was an internal insurgency combining with external support – in this case Pakistan – to destabilise the country and thwart its progress.

We have not had another attack on the scale of 9/11, though no one knows whether that is because of what we did post 9/11 or despite it.

The World Trade Center attack exploded into our consciousness because of its severity and horror. But the motivation for such an atrocity arose from an ideology many years in development.

For want of a better term, I will call it Radical Islam – an ideology in different forms and with varying degrees of extremism that has been almost 100 years in gestation.

Its essence is the belief that Muslim people are disrespected and disadvantaged because they are oppressed by outside powers and their own corrupt leadership, and that the answer lies in Islam returning to its roots, creating a State based not on nations but on religion, with society and politics governed by a strict and fundamentalist view of Islam.

In the West, we have sections of our own Muslim communities radicalised. Islamism is a long-term structural challenge because it is an ideology utterly inconsistent with modern societies based on tolerance and secular government. Yet Western policymakers prefer to identify Radical Islam as a set of disconnected challenges each to be dealt with separately.

We are in the wrong rhythm of thinking in relation to Radical Islam. With Revolutionary Communism, we recognised it as a threat of a strategic nature that required us to confront it both ideologically and with security measures. It lasted more than 70 years. Throughout that time we would never have dreamt of saying, ‘Well, we have been at this for a long time, we should just give up.’

We knew we had to have the will, the capacity and the staying power to see it through. This is what we need to decide now with Radical Islam. Is it a strategic threat? If so, how do those opposed to it, including within Islam, combine to defeat it?

We have learnt the perils of intervention in the way we intervened in Afghanistan, Iraq and indeed Libya. But non-intervention is also a policy with consequence.

What is absurd is to believe the choice is between what we did in the first decade after 9/11 and the retreat we are witnessing now; to treat the full-scale 2001 military intervention as of the same nature as the secure-and-support mission in Afghanistan of recent times.

Intervention can take many forms. We need to do it learning the proper lessons of the past 20 years, according not to our short-term politics but to our long-term strategic interests.

But intervention requires commitment. And not time-limited by political timetables but by obedience to goals. For Britain and the US, these questions are acute. The absence of consensus and collaboration, and the deep politicisation of foreign policy and security issues, is visibly atrophying American power.

And for Britain, out of the EU and suffering the end of the Afghanistan mission by our greatest ally with little or no consultation, we have serious reflection to do. We don’t see it yet. But we are at risk of relegation to the second division of global powers. Maybe we don’t mind. But we should at least take the decision deliberatively.

There are, of course, many other important issues in geo-politics: Covid 19, Climate, the rise of China, poverty, disease and development. But sometimes an issue comes to mean something not only in its own right but as a metaphor, as a clue to the state of things and the state of peoples. If the West wants to shape the 21st Century, it will take commitment. Through thick and thin.

It will require parts of the Right in politics to understand that isolation in an interconnected world is self-defeating; and parts of the Left to accept that intervention can sometimes be necessary to uphold our values.

It requires us to learn lessons from those 20 years from 9/11, in a spirit of humility, and the respectful exchange of different points of view. It also requires a sense of rediscovery that we in the West represent values and interests worth being proud of and defending. And that commitment to those values and interests needs to define our politics – and not our politics define our commitment.

This is the large strategic question posed by these last days of chaos in Afghanistan. And on the answer will depend the world’s view of us and our view of ourselves.

This is an edited version of an article originally published on the Tony Blair Institute website.