Afghanistan

Lord Howard of Lympne Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howard of Lympne (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I believe that we were right to intervene in Afghanistan and wrong to withdraw. I say “we”, but of course the decisions to intervene and to withdraw were made by the Americans. We could not have gone it alone. The original decision to intervene was a reaction to the attack on America, the 20th anniversary of which we commemorate in a few weeks’ time. More recently, the intervention has been in response to an invitation from the legitimate Government of that country to help them overcome a barbaric insurrection which posed a terrible threat to its people, especially its women, and to the welfare of the wider international community. If the values of what we loosely call the West are to have any substance, we were right to respond to that invitation. I believe it justified the lives, the blood and the sacrifice of so many of our young men and women, and those of our allies, to whom I pay heartfelt tribute.

The responsibility for the decision to withdraw rests with President Biden. Up to now, many of us have been rather impressed with the president’s performance in his first few months in office, although that may in large part be due to the relief at the absence of his unlamented predecessor. But I am afraid that President Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan is, and will be seen by history as, a catastrophic mistake which may well prove to be the defining legacy of his presidency.

It is a mistake which will, I fear, have calamitous consequences: first, for the people of Afghanistan, and especially its women; secondly, for the countries, including European countries, to which many of these people will seek to flee; thirdly, for the security of ourselves and our friends and allies, who will once again be vulnerable to attack from that country. It has been widely reported that those loyal to al-Qaeda and Islamic State have been fighting alongside the Taliban. They will expect their support to be rewarded.

Fourthly, and in some ways perhaps most importantly of all, it fatally undermines the credibility of any assurance of support—past, present or future—that we in the West offer to those who need it. Any future promises will be in debased coinage. These are dark days for those of us who believe in the values of what we loosely call western civilization. They mark a significant staging point in its decline. If that decline is to be reversed, or at least arrested, we are in dire need of statesmanship of a very high order. Sadly, that statesmanship is today conspicuous largely by its absence.