The US acted unilaterally over the withdrawal - Joe Biden had little interest in Boris Johnson's view.
America acted unilaterally over Afghanistan - actually maybe that should be Joe Biden acted unilaterally. The administration was not much interested in what the UK thought. Mr Biden, from what I have been told, was not much interested in the red flags being raised by his intel community and military top brass, or by the warnings delivered from London. He wanted out. The warnings of HM Government - and my understanding is they were made strenuously - fell on deaf, indifferent ears in Washington.
And as I say, this isn't about the current incumbent of Downing Street, it's about any occupant of that famous address. Isn't it just a bit hubristic, vainglorious, to think that a British prime minister is going to stop a determined American president in his tracks? What was Boris Johnson meant to say? "I'm sorry Joe, I simply refuse to let you do this."
In Downing Street there was also urgent fury, and it was coming from Mrs Thatcher, ready to give a hand-bagging to anyone who got in her way. Ronald Reagan had not bothered to give her any kind of warning, even though Grenada was a Commonwealth country. It was humiliating for Britain and the Crown, and it gave the Labour opposition a field day. And the Americans were not much bothered.
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