{"id":35781,"date":"2021-08-23T23:00:06","date_gmt":"2021-08-23T14:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/aug\/23\/tony-blair-afghan-withdrawal-remorse-west-gains-2001-invasion"},"modified":"2021-08-23T23:00:06","modified_gmt":"2021-08-23T14:00:06","slug":"tony-blair-damns-the-afghan-withdrawal-but-he-would-do-better-to-show-remorse-simon-jenkins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=35781","title":{"rendered":"Tony Blair damns the Afghan withdrawal but he would do better to show remorse | Simon Jenkins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The former PM has some nerve to say the west should stay on in Afghanistan to protect the \u2018gains\u2019 of his 2001 invasion<\/p>\n<p>Imbecilic, tragic, dangerous and unnecessary are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newstatesman.com\/politics\/2021\/08\/fate-afghanistan-shows-why-west-must-not-abandon-intervention\">the words used by Tony Blair<\/a> to describe the US withdrawal from Afghanistan \u2013 and Britain\u2019s as well. The former British prime minister believes the west should stay to protect the \u201cgains\u201d achieved by his original invasion in 2001, and by implication by the deaths of 457 British soldiers. As it is, Britain has been \u201crelegated from the top division\u201d of world powers, its enemies are \u201ccheering\u201d and its word is no longer relied on.<\/p>\n<p>The final duty any prime minister owes his successors is silence. Otherwise he invites the obvious retort: but it was your fault.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/aug\/23\/tony-blair-afghan-withdrawal-remorse-west-gains-2001-invasion\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The former PM has some nerve to say the west should stay on in Afghanistan to protect the \u2018gains\u2019 of his 2001 invasionImbecilic, tragic, dangerous and unnecessary are the words used by Tony Blair to describe the US withdrawal from Afghanistan \u2013 and Bri&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2095,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,4,61,44,2292,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-politics","category-south-and-central-asia","category-taliban","category-tony-blair","category-uk-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2095"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35782,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35781\/revisions\/35782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}