I wonder how, or if, the relationship between the UK and USA will recover based on these reports in today’s
Sunday Times.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/t...pens-jw782ghxr
Ministers have warned that Britain will have to tear up its foreign policy after the debacle in Afghanistan, amid flaring tempers about America’s decision to cut and run.….A minister denounced American “isolationism” and said that the government would have to “revisit” the recent review on defence and foreign policy because the US was no longer a reliable ally.
“America has just signalled to the world that they are not that keen on playing a global role,” the minister said. “The implications of that are absolutely huge. We need to get the integrated review out and reread it. We are going to have to do a hard-nosed revisit on all our assumptions and policies.
“The US had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the First World War. They turned up late for the Second World War and now they are cutting and running in Afghanistan.”….
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/t...bles-58sdwt3t7
….Ministers are openly questioning both the sanity of Joe Biden, the US president, and the durability of the Anglo-American relationship…
As the situation in Afghanistan deteriorated last week, Biden used a press conference on Monday to say, “The buck stops with me” and rejected any suggestion that the withdrawal could have been handled better. “Getting out would be messy no matter when it occurred,” he insisted.
In London ministers and their advisers watched with incredulity. One minister said the president “looked gaga”. An aide described the press conference as “completely mad” and the president as “doolally”. Such thoughts are normally never whispered in Whitehall, let alone briefed.….
The frustration at the top of the British government with the White House is arguably unlike anything that has been seen since the Falklands War in 1982. Events in Kabul have exposed the sobering reality that Britain’s recent strategic review of foreign and security policy was predicated on a White House that wanted to work with its allies.
A furious minister said: “America has just signalled to the world that they are not that keen on playing a global role. The implications of that are absolutely huge. There is a massive constituency in America that is isolationist.
“We need to get the integrated review out and reread it with a yellow pen. We are going to have to do a hard-nosed revisit on all our assumptions and policies, be it China or the Middle East.
“This is the closest I have come to feeling depressed because of work. Brexit was bad but this is much worse. The castle we thought was built on rocks is built on sand.”……