Tony Blair has quite dramatically broken his silence over the “chaotic” U.S.-led military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The Former British Prime Minister who himself was in office when the U.S. led the invasion of Afghanistan, unleashed a brutal attack on U.S. President Joe Biden. 

In an article, he says the manner of Biden’s Afghan withdrawal will lead allies and friends to question if the West has “lost its strategic will” in the aftermath of the swift Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. 

“We didn’t need to [withdraw]. We chose to do it. We did it in the obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending 'the forever wars'."

He says the “the world is now uncertain of where the west stands because it is so obvious that the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan in this way was driven not by grand strategy but by politics”.

According to Blair "Russia, China and Iran will see and take advantage. Anyone given commitments by Western Leaders will understandably regard them as unstable currency”. 

In another damning assessment of the West’s declining reliability on the word stage, he also says “that's the worry of our allies and the source of rejoicing in those who wish us ill. They think Western politics is broken."

The former British premier adds the withdrawal is “tragic, dangerous and unnecessary.. the abandonment of Afghanistan and its people is tragic, dangerous, unnecessary, not in their interests and not in ours"

Blair also says the crisis over the past week reveals that the UK is at risk of “being relegated to the second division of global powers”. 

He blamed the UK “being out of Europe” and “little or no consultation by our greatest ally” the United States, for Britain’s declining influence on the international arena. 

However, opponents of Blair, will no doubt be furious, especially the British anti-war movements who say his stance on wars is hypocritical. They argue his involvement in the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has left the former premier as a hypocrite and discredited. 

In 2001, then Prime Minister Blair sent British troops to Afghanistan and took the same decision again in 2003 with Iraq. 

Following the Chilcot Inquiry, legal hearings took place which tried to prosecute Blair for war crimes. 

Many anti-war movements, members of Parliament and other organizations labelled Blair as a “war criminal” who has the blood of a million people on his hands. 

In 2017, a YouGov poll found that a third of British people wanted to see Blair tried as a war criminal. His critics argue that he knowingly misled Parliament and the public and should be tried as a war criminal.