Afghanistan

Viscount Waverley Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Waverley (CB) [V]]

My Lords, advocating and defending principles is honourable, but the time has come to ask deep questions as to whether a strategy that creates vacuums and a quagmire of devastation and despair in the elusive quest for democracy and civil liberties has been self-defeating. While fundamental responsibility must be taken for our failure and the near certainty of what will befall those brave men and women who will be tagged traitors, my despair is countered only by acknowledging that the United Kingdom was an important but junior partner to the coalition in practical terms. However, this does not excuse government from responding to key questions.

Although it came as no surprise, why did HMG, with all their historical experience of Afghanistan, fail to anticipate the rapid collapse of government and the Taliban takeover? What was our post-withdrawal plan for Afghanistan in the run-up to a western withdrawal? What are our plans now, in the light of the Taliban takeover, and how will the Government, with the discredited western alliance, seek to counter all this?

The United States has a moral obligation to Afghanistan but has now lost credibility, if not all. The writing was on the wall from the start. There was never going to be a political and military solution with the imposing of systems through the prism of western capitals to the exclusion of culture and history. That was our undoing. Reflecting on my forays into Afghanistan over earlier years, meeting all manner of people and learning of missed intelligence, leaves me questioning imposed, corrupt, centralised democratic governance of Afghanistan as untenable—although, to an extent, that is exactly how it may end up.

In defeat, we should not look exclusively at how this debacle is detrimental to our interests but rather consider the detriment to the people of Afghanistan. The potential lot of women defies comprehension. Western media and we in Parliament should not be fooled by the dichotomy between the Taliban’s political wing, with its suave messaging, and events on the ground. I listened with dismay to a heartrending message to world leaders about what is to befall women: “Shame on you”; “We have no hope”; “Afghanistan is being taken back 200 years”. It ended with the most telling statement: “We are disgusted.” Omens are not good, with a Talib leader confirming worst fears.

On the broader front, our involvement in Afghanistan has sullied our reputation and laid open a comparative advantage to the very relationships that government policy castigates—for which read Russia, China and Iran. Has the time come when a far-ranging strategy towards all three should be considered? They will undermine proposals no matter how pragmatic, use vetoes and play their respective hands with an eye to the main chance.

All the negative effects of the narco trade should not be underestimated but given that the Taliban is a creature of Pakistan’s ISI, what of covert support by the ISI? I am hearing that it has firmly informed the Taliban that they will need to deliver on the moderate approach they claim to have adopted if they wish to stay in power. Complexities, such as the inability of the Saud family in government to rein in wayward family members with their abundant wealth and extremist religious ideology, remain a concern. I anticipate proxy organisations supporting terrorism into the western world, with al-Qaeda setting up Afghanistan as the base for operations, with far-ranging tentacles in a wholesale network of terror stretching across the Sahel into Mozambique. My prognosis is bleak and, I trust, wide of the mark. We cannot and must not abandon Afghanistan.