The decision to abandon Afghanistan has been a colossal and humiliating foreign policy misjudgment.
In withdrawing military support, America and the UK have created a safe haven for Islamic terror groups to plan attacks.
This became tragically and brutally clear on Thursday when more than 160 Afghans and 13 US military personnel were killed in the suicide bombing amidst the chaos at Kabul Airport.
It would be naive not to fully expect more of the same and for the attacks to move closer to home.
Former US national security adviser HR McMaster has warned that the Taliban’s return to power is a victory for all jihadist terrorists, including Al-Qaeda and IS, who often overlap.
That is why it is so inexplicable that we have chosen to walk away from a relatively small commitment both financially and in terms of boots on the ground.
The hard work had already been done and now we are back to square one.
But this isn’t just bad for us, it is an even greater tragedy for millions of Afghans who enjoyed basic freedoms and human rights for the last 20 years.
While all citizens are now likely to suffer under a barbaric and regressive regime, which should have no place in the modern world, women are undoubtedly going to suffer the most.
There have already been reports of girls terrified to leave home without burqas and being seized and forced into marriage by warlords.
Former prime minister Gordon Brown has demanded that the G7 counter this by agreeing a £6billion education aid package to be overseen by Edinburgh University.
He wants the money to be handed over in instalments on the strict condition that women’s rights are protected.
The proposal will be hugely controversial with those who believe we would be handing money to a regime working
hand-in-glove with terrorists plotting to kill our citizens.
On the other hand, as the UK’s last evacuation flight jets out of Kabul, perhaps it is the only option to preserve a few small shreds of two decades of progress unnecessarily trashed.
