Afghanistan

Lord Godson Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Godson (Con)]

I too wish to associate myself with the remarks made in tribute to our forces, civil servants, public servants and aid workers. Many have paid tribute already today, but it is important that the total unanimity and solidarity of this House is heard at this time. It has been a hugely important debate and a privilege to listen to. It may be, as several speakers including the noble Lord, Lord Howard, have said, an inflection point for the future world order and particularly for our alliances going forward.

The role of the United States has been central to this and the Biden Administration have been rightly criticised, I think unanimously—as least, I have not heard any speaker defend their decision here today. It is a uniquely personal decision of this President, who has a long-held view about the necessity of withdrawal from Afghanistan. It has been a shameful and a graceless decision expressed in graceless ways, as has been noted, with insufficient tribute to the Afghan security forces who gave their lives and to allied and NATO countries whose forces—notably our own—also gave their lives.

However, the Biden Administration are not the totality of America. Through much of my political life, having been born an American citizen, I have noted many pessimistic predictions for the US after previous debacles, although perhaps none quite as serious as this, which rolls in many of the features of past debacles into one fell swoop.

I remember the pessimism about the US retreat in Vietnam in 1975 and the debacle of the hostage crisis in Iran in 1979-1981 when the Khomeini regime humiliated the Administration of Jimmy Carter. I was working in America when the bombing of the US marine barracks in Beirut and the subsequent humiliating withdrawal of US marines and other forces took place. I can well remember all those things. But because the Biden Administration are not the totality of the United States and its polity, America has an enormous resilience and ability to bounce back, to reappraise, regather and regroup.

It is interesting that, despite the implication that the Biden Administration withdrew so rapidly from Afghanistan for political reasons, the latest polling numbers from Politico pollsters already indicate a 20% drop in US public support for withdrawal from Afghanistan, so humiliating and abject are the terms. Even though the public do not object to the withdrawal per se, the way in which it has been conducted is so obviously unsatisfactory and degrading as to prompt that drop. That is not the totality of United States public opinion and it may be that, in the coming days and months, anti-interventionist groups such as the Quincy coalition will see a further erosion of their support as well, as the American public look at what has been done in their name and whether it is in the United States’ national interest.

As far as wider alliances and partnerships are concerned, I make one final point: there needs to be a serious reappraisal of our relationship with Pakistan. Several speakers have already alluded to this. It is a complex country, with complex motives and a complex system of government. I ask the Minister whether he would be willing, since the UK Government are setting up an office of net assessment, to consider having a net assessment of our relations with Pakistan and more broadly in the region and to have an overall look, now we are at this inflection point, at what can be done here and now.