Boris Johnson faces ‘do-or-die’ moment on Afghanistan: is he up to it?

Boris Johnson will use an emergency virtual G7 summit of world leaders tomorrow to urge Joe Biden to extend a deadline for American troops leaving Afghanistan.

The prime minister will appeal to the US president to delay the 31 August deadline to allow more people to escape the Taliban, who have been in control of the country for more than a week.

The Ministry of Defence has said that 6,000 people, including British nationals and Afghans eligible for relocation, have been evacuated from Afghanistan by British troops, but that US forces are essentially running the airport and keeping it secure so it would be hard to continue without their support.

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Biden is “struggling to contain” the political fallout of his withdrawal, as “lethal mayhem persisted outside Kabul airport, with thousands of terrified Afghans trying to flee”, reported The New York Times last night.

But, for Johnson, the unfolding crisis could be his “finest hour”, said Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun.

“This is our PM’s date with destiny, a do-or-die moment to unite the good guys against an unholy alliance,” he wrote.

Before Kabul fell on 15 August, Johnson seemed “unassailable”, but that has all changed, Kavanagh continued. His “trump card” is the presidency of the G7, offering him a “platform on the world stage for a spine-tingling address to the demoralised, US-led, Nato military alliance”, he added. “Is Boris up to it? He’d better be, for his own sake.”

Influence sapped

After the PM faced “opprobrium from his own side” in the House of Commons last week over the UK’s response in Afghanistan, “the chatter in the parliamentary tearooms turned again to this question: do you think he will make it to the next election?” wrote Charlotte Ivers in The Sunday Times yesterday.

She noted that “this is only being asked in whispers at the moment, but it is being asked nonetheless”.

In The Observer, Andrew Rawnsley argued that Johnson’s power to persuade the White House has been sapped by Brexit and the “savage cuts” to the aid budget. When it came to the calls that mattered over Afghanistan earlier this year, “Mr Johnson’s capacity to influence Mr Biden was less than that of the president’s dog”, wrote Rawnsley.

Andrew Grice in The Independent agreed, saying the Afghanistan disaster has “exposed the fundamental flaw in Johnson’s ‘global Britain’ strategy: the UK is even more dependent on the US than before Brexit and yet enjoys precious little influence in Washington”.

UK left exposed

Downing Street has officially dismissed claims that Johnson is feeling “furious” and “let down” by the US, but “there is little question that the UK has been left exposed by the speed of Washington’s pull-out”, said the Mail on Sunday.

Whitehall insiders have been briefing anonymously against Biden over the weekend, with one source suggesting that there were concerns the 78-year-old might be “a bit doolally” and out of step with the demands of the 2020s. Former PM Tony Blair also weighed in yesterday with a 2,700-word article, arguing that the West’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was in “obedience to an imbecilic slogan about ending the ‘forever wars’”.

A leaked UK government memo seen by Bloomberg sheds light on why No. 10 might be feeling betrayed. It suggested Biden promised London in June that the US would continue to maintain enough of a security presence to keep Kabul safe.

The ‘hard reality’

The Telegraph says Johnson will put Biden “on the spot” tomorrow after attempts by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to ask their US counterparts to extend the 31 August deadline “fell on deaf ears”.

But asked about the deadline at a press conference last night, Biden said only: “There are discussions going on about extending. Our hope is that we don’t have to extend but there are discussions going on about how far we are.”

Meanwhile, a Taliban spokesman has told Sky News that it would reject calls for any additional time for evacuations after 31 August. “It’s a red line… It will create mistrust between us. If they are intent on continuing the occupation it will provoke a reaction,” he said.

Armed Forces Minister James Heappey acknowledged today that it “isn’t just a decision that gets taken in Washington – the Taliban gets a vote on this as well”.

Johnson’s future aside, Heappey laid out what is really at stake if the UK is not able to continue the evacuation into September. “We will get out as many as we possibly can but we have been clear throughout that there is a hard reality that we won’t be able to get out everybody that we want to.”