The Biden Administration will be haunted by those sad scenes of Afghans clinging to the outside of a US plane wanting to take off from Kabul. They did so  in the vain hope that they might be able to go with the passengers approved for the journey inside the aircraft. That picture tells us powerfully that many Afghans see the Taliban takeover of their country as a disaster. It reminds us that the might of the USA, visibly present in the form of a large military aircraft, was bent on getting out and leaving behind the chaos that is Afghanistan under  Taliban takeover.

The USA was always the initiator and senior NATO partner in the Afghan operation. For some twenty years US and allied troops fought to evict the Taliban from the towns and villages of Afghanistan, and then helped the Afghan forces recruit, train and equip to gradually take over the tasks of policing to  prevent a further insurgency. Many brave UK soldiers gave their lives or suffered bad injuries in the cause of preventing the barbarism of a Taliban regime to assist the US led mission. Good advances were made in reducing the numbers of murders and exchanges of fire, allowing girls and women education and better lives, and beginning to develop a more diverse democratic system of government. These  were achievements the West could be proud of, and can  explain the sacrifices made by our military personnel.

President Obama tried to bring the Taliban into a peace process to see if politics and diplomacy could take over from vigilance and fighting, without success. President Trump did get into talks with  the Taliban about how they could play a role within a democratic and peace loving Afghanistan. His Agreement promised US troop withdrawal in return for security guarantees from the Taliban and the intent for the Taliban to hold talks with the Afghan government to establish an agreed ways of working with them for the future.  President Biden by removing US forces too speedily without the agreement of his Afghan or NATO allies left open an opportunity for the Taliban to abandon the idea of talks and to press home the advantage to  take control of the whole country instead. It turned out the Afghan forces were not ready to track and withstand Taliban armed insurgents despite all the training and  military equipment the US and its allies had helped provide. If President Biden had listened to allies he would have left more support in place to prevent such an easy capture of the state. His claim that he was following President Trump’s policy is not borne out by reading the Doha Declaration or Agreement with the Taliban which made clear the Taliban had to negotiate a role with the Afghan government, not usurp it at the point of a gun.

What should happen now? The first thing is to ask President Biden to make sure he does not repeat the experience in Iraq by vacating there too soon and before the host nation is ready to run its own security without help. The second is to get President Biden to spell out what alliance structure he now wishes to establish, as he has damaged and undermined the Trump idea of relying on Saudi, Israel and the Gulf states as his main allies,  bringing them together in an anti Iran coalition with peace treaties between the Arab states and Israel.  As President Biden tilts a bit towards Iran, how will that work out with old Trump allies who see Iran as a threat to regional peace? Will  Taliban Afghanistan now ally with Iran, strengthening the forces traditionally hostile to the West? What will President Biden do if China becomes a best friend and ally of Afghanistan and offers large sums  of aid, loans and investment to gain control of important economic  resources? Will the US be able to rely on  bases in Pakistan if Pakistan emerges as  major influence on Taliban Afghanistan and another ally of Mr Biden’s nemesis? Whilst it is said that even China, Pakistan and Russia have their reservations about some Taliban stances and the way they overthrew an established government, they will all most likely exploit the damage it has done to the West and will seek to lever their links to the Taliban.

We were told the world would be a better place when a new President promised grown up  foreign policies from the White House. Eight months on and the Middle East is a less stable place, the US has suffered a major military defeat without firing a shot in anger to stop the Taliban that they had evicted previously, and we await some idea of how the President thinks he can pursue diplomatic avenues to defend western interests and help support  more stable and prosperous societies in the Middle East.

I was surprised to receive an email from the BBC after my interview on Monday of last week. It asked me to prove that German carbon dioxide emissions were twice as large as the UK’s,  a claim I made in  my interview. I was surprised because I would expect the BBC to know the main sources of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide as practically every BBC news show and comment show has to have a climate change item on it these days. I sent him back  couple of sources that a simple google search  yielded. I had of course checked my recollections of the numbers before doing the interview so I knew they were correct. He expressed no interest in my allegations about China which accounts for around 27 times as much CO2 output as the UK.

He returned to the issue having consulted someone else to point out that if you looked at consumption patterns rather than at where fuel was burned and  things made the Uk would have a worse figure and Germany as  a leading exporter of carbon dioxide drenched products would have a bit better figure by transferring some of their CO2 to the importing country. Germany would of course still be the larger emitter.  I explained that I was talking about COP 26 and the global Treaty framework. The whole basis of the international conferences is to get countries to pledge to cut the CO2 that is generated on their territory, as that is more subject to their control. Surely  the expression Germany’s CO2 output means just that, the CO2 they produce.

He agreed that the figures used were correct but felt he needed to write an additional essay about how perhaps we should use consumption based figures instead of the agreed international output based figures. I objected to this being done in  the name of a fact check on what I had said when it was obvious I had cited accurate normal figures. Nonetheless the BBC fact check then posted a long essay which did begin by quoting another source to show my figures were accurate before going  into a long apology for Germany and a representation of figures to cast Germany in a  better light. Why? Why does Germany have to be protected when her business model includes digging out plenty of brown coal and burning it, and producing millions of fossil fuel burning vehicles. In contrast the UK has all but phased out coal from the mix. Why no mention of Germany’s rows over extending open cast coal mining, her refusal to eliminate coal  this decade, and no mention of China, the world’s largest carbon dioxide producer?

I wrote about this brewing crisis recently and have tweeted about the dangers of the unduly hasty US withdrawal . I will return to this topic with a longer piece on Wednesday morning ahead of the Parliamentary debate. I am putting out this bookmark so those of you who want to write about it have a tag to do so.

Readers of this blog may be interested to see my recent interview on GB News:

I have sent the following letter and await a reply:

Dear Archbishop

I was pleased to hear reported your view that there needs to be more recognition of England and Englishness to complement the recognition of Scottish and Welsh cultures and interests within the UK Union.

I was not however persuaded that you do understand the nature of the English view when you went on to propose the international and EU elite solution to the English problem, more devolution to regions. England has rejected EU/Whitehall proposals to create artificial regions with elected governments. Many of us resented the way the EU refused to put England on their maps but broke us up into unpopular Euro regions. We were relieved they  allowed Scotland and Wales to escape whole and unscathed. We are  now concerned about the EU’s aggressive approach to Northern Ireland.

I would be happy to debate these matters with you to extend understanding of England and Englishness within the UK and to expose lopsided and unfair devolution. There could be an online  debate  or we could book a room at Westminster with an audience if rules allow.

Yours sincerely

John Redwood