Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister who had deployed troops in Afghanistan 20 years ago ~ after the 9/11 catastrophe ~ has claimed that the US decision to withdraw from the embattled country has had “every jihadist group around the world cheering”.

In a lengthy essay posted on his website last Saturday ~ the day before Kabul fell to the Taliban ~ Mr Blair said the sudden and chaotic pullout that enabled the Taliban to reclaim power risked undermining everything that had been achieved in Afghanistan over the past two decades, notably advances in the standard of living and education of girls.

He accused President Biden of obeying what he called an “imbecilic political slogan about ‘Ending the forever wars’.” Caustically, he has noted: “It is almost as if our engagement in 2021 was remotely comparable to our commitment 20 or even 10 years ago”.

And then the punchline – “It is so obvious that the decision to withdraw the boots on the ground in this way was driven not by grand strategy but by politics.”

The reference quite clearly is to politics in America. The former British Prime Minister, whose reputation in the United Kingdom had plummetted from the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction that was cited as the raison d’etre for the AngloUS coalition’s invasion of Iraq in March 2003, had been a prime mover in the actions initiated two decades ago.

Britain, he said, has a moral responsibility to stay in Afghanistan “until everyone who needs to be evacuated in taken out.” He said: “We must evacuate and afford sanctuary to those Afghans specicifically those who helped us, stood by us and have the right to demand that ‘we stand by them’…Like other nations, Britain is trying to evacuate Afghan allies as well as its own citizens from Afghanistan.”

But there is little doubt that Britan is engaged in a race against time. Apart from the 4,000 or so citizens of the UK, the country is believed to have around 5,000 Afghan allies, such as translators and drivers who have a reserved seat on the plane. Mr Blair conceded that mistakes were made over the past two decades, even as the Ministry of Defence let it be be known on Sunday that nearly 4,000 people had been evacuated thus far.

“Today we are in a mood which seems to regard the ‘bringing of democracy’ as a utopian delusion and intervention of any sort as a fool’s errand”. That said, given its current position in the Group of Seven, Mr Blair has warned that relegating Britain to the “second division’ of global powers, has certain inbuilt risks.

As Afghanistan teeters on the brink, and thousands scramble to get out, the former British Prime Minister, discredited though he may be in his own country, is a critic the West and its allies cannot ignore easily.