Rory Stewart showered with praise as his Afghanistan war analysis goes viral

Rory Stewart has been praised after an interview clip of him analysing the situation in Afghanistan went viral.

In an interview with Politics Joe, the former Conservative minister criticised the US and the UK for removing troops from the country and suggested doing so was the reason why the Taliban has been able to seize the country.

He said: “The United States provided all the air support for the Afghans. They didn’t just take their own planes away. They took away 16,000 civilian contractors who were maintaining the Afghan helicopters.

“They didn’t even tell the commander that they were leaving.”

Stewart suggested it was wrong for Biden to expect Afghan forces to fight without Western support because they were not sufficiently equipped to do so.

He added: “If you’re genuinely asking them to put up a suicidal fight when the United States and Britain was not even prepared to keep 2,500 soldiers and some planes in the country, with zero casualties, zero risk over the last few years... this has been an extraordinary betrayal.

Last Sunday, Taliban forces seized control of the country causing people to flee to airports in an attempt to escape the regime. While the Taliban has said it will respect the rights of women, differentiating itself from its previous administration, there are already reports about how they are treating citizens suggesting this pledge will ring hollow.

The UK government has faced criticism for its response - both for inadequately preparing Western-backed Afghan forces prior to withdrawing their own troops and for not doing enough to support refugees fleeing the new regime.

Stewart said keeping troops in the region was “the easiest thing to continue to do for the Afghan people.” He added that not doing so was tantamount to handing “them over to the Taliban.”

“It’s insanity,” he said.

Reacting to the clip, which has been viewed over a million times, people praised Stewart for his eloquence with many calling him “a voice of reason”.

Piers Morgan even called for Stewart to be the next Prime Minister, to which Stewart joked: “we could job share.”

Do you agree with him?