According to the British "Daily Telegraph" website reported on August 21, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair slammed Biden's "stupid" withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The report pointed out that Blair, who led LinkedIn countries to participate in the war in Afghanistan in 2001, made a rare attack on the United States this time.
He said the "deep politicization" of U.S. foreign policy was "significantly weakening" U.S. influence, adding that a rout triggered by the withdrawal could relegate Britain to a "second echelon" of global powers.
Blair published an article on the website of the Institute for Global Change, which he founded. It was "clearly" "not grand strategy, but political factors" that prompted the West to make the decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan "in this way," the article said.
In January, Mr. Blair called Biden "the right person at the right time and in the right place," though he attacked the Democratic president almost unabashedly in his article.
Blair said: "We don't have to do that. We chose to do so. We do this purely to comply with the political slogan of ending the 'endless war', as if the forces we put in 2021 are comparable to the intensity of our actions 20 or even 10 years ago. ”
While Mr. Blair did not mention Biden by name in the 2,700-word article, the slogan of "endless war" he slammed was the core propaganda of Biden's presidential campaign last year, saying on his official election website: "Biden will end the endless wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East that have cost us countless blood and wealth." ”
In April, After being elected president, Biden said: "We were attacked and we went to war with a clear goal. We have achieved those goals. Bin Laden is dead, al-Qaida's power in Afghanistan has been weakened, and it is time to end this never-ending war. ”
In the article, Blair said that "every jihadist group around the world" is "cheering" for the withdrawal.
Tony Blair, who stepped down as British prime minister in 2007, compared the West's campaign against "Radical Islam" to a 70-year confrontation between the West and communism, calling for "tangible proof" that the West is not making a "retreat that changes the times."
Senior British government officials were furious at Biden's public statements about the situation in Afghanistan. Senior government officials believe that Britain decided to leave under pressure from the United States. A government official said Saturday that Biden seemed "a bit unrealistic."
Government sources insist that prime minister Boris Johnson did not echo the officials who criticized the United States at a time when politicians in Britain and the United States were bickering over the collapse of Afghanistan and that relations were strained, saying he still maintained a "good working relationship" with Biden.
However, some other British government figures believe that after the change in the situation in Kabul, the United States should bear some responsibility for the chaos at the airport, because it was the United States that told "everyone to rush to the airport immediately" to evacuate.
According to TASS London reported on August 22, former British Prime Minister Blair said that US President Joe Biden's government's decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan is not far-sighted.
In an article published in the Mainstream British media, Blair wrote: "Today, such a trend of thought prevails: the spread of democracy is described as a utopian myth, and all kinds of interference is described as futile ideas. Now, the world doesn't know what the West is defending, because it is clear that the decision to leave Afghanistan was made not out of grand strategic considerations, but out of political factors. ”
In the view of the former heads of government, the Western countries "heeded the stupid political slogan of ending endless wars when the number of troops was minimized and allied soldiers were not killed for a year and a half." Blair warned that with the Taliban in power, Afghanistan risks losing "its achievements in the areas of education and human rights."
He noted: "There is no doubt that in the past years, we have made a series of mistakes, including major mistakes. Unfortunately, however, the number of reactions to these errors has increased. ”
Blair also called on the British government to "hold the Taliban accountable."
Source: Reference News Network
![For the misfortune of a generation! Blair admitted for the first time 20 years later: I was naïve enough to use force to transform other countries[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)