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A powerful whiff of anti-Americanism emanated from Westminster over the weekend. The Taliban blitzkrieg has not only shattered 20 years of nation-building in Afghanistan: it has delivered a

huge shock to the Atlantic Alliance. Deep in the bowels of Whitehall, atavistic attitudes have begun to re-emerge. Unless they are held in check, or better still banished, the long-term

damage they may do to Anglo-American relations and the British national interest will far outweigh the humiliating scenes we are now witnessing at Kabul airport. In the _Sunday Times_, an

article by Tim Shipman and Josh Glancy quoted various anonymous but presumably authoritative ministerial sources expostulating about President Biden. The Prime Minister is quoted by “an

insider” to have “half-jokingly” exclaimed: “We would be better off with Trump.” Downing Street has denied repeated claims that Boris Johnson habitually refers to the President as “Sleepy

Joe”, the disparaging sobriquet popularised by Trump. But another minister is reported to have said that Biden “looked gaga” at his press conference last week, while an aide described him as

“doolally”. Evidently such talk is now rife in the corridors of power and it seems that the Government does not care who knows it. But, as the wartime slogan had it, “careless talk costs

lives”. Even more damagingly, hostility is also being directed at “the Americans”. One minister was reported to have raged about how the US had entered both world wars late — though this

quotation mysteriously disappeared from later online editions of the paper. Another “furious minister” is quoted thus: “America has just signalled to the world that they are not keen on

playing a global role. The implications of that are absolutely huge. There is a massive constituency in America that is isolationist.” The source added: “Brexit was bad but this is worse.

The castle we thought was built on rocks is built on sand.” There is, of course, much truth in these criticisms of US foreign policy. It is hardly news that many Americans are, and always

have been, isolationist. But that is why it is deeply misleading to suggest that the USA has not been a reliable ally over the past century and more. It took courage and leadership for

successive presidents to sacrifice Americans to fight two world wars in Europe and then to commit the very survival of their nation to the defence of their Nato allies during the Cold War.

The war on terror has again seen US forces engaged across the world in the defence of the West. And the US nuclear umbrella continues to protect us and indeed the whole free world against

the autocracies of Beijing and Moscow, not to mention rogue states such as North Korea and Iran. None of this should be taken for granted. It has never been easy to persuade American

presidents to support our vital interests. The memory of Suez lingers on. After Vietnam, and especially during the Iranian hostage crisis, many feared that the US was turning its back on the

world. Then Ronald Reagan reasserted the determination of the US to defend freedom and democracy. After Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, George H.R. Bush had to be told not to “go wobbly” by

Margaret Thatcher. There were similar fears later in the 1990s, when the Balkans disintegrated into war, genocide and “ethnic cleansing”: only when Bill Clinton was reluctantly persuaded to

intervene did the carnage end. If Americans are now tiring of their accustomed role (inherited from the British) as world policeman, then the world should beware. There are plenty of

criminals lurking in the shadows. For well over a century, and especially at times of global peril, it has always been the British part to keep our American cousins on the side of the

angels. It required all the efforts of Winston Churchill to win over Franklin Roosevelt to the cause of halting Hitler’s reign of terror; even then, it was only when the Japanese attacked

Pearl Harbor that the US overcame its reluctance to be drawn into full-scale conflict. It was Churchill again, after Truman had brought many US troops home from postwar Europe, whose “Iron

Curtain” speech at Fulton, Missouri, in 1946 argued that the US and the UK had a duty to defend the West from the threat of communism. American public opinion is not static and requires

constant attention from this side of the Atlantic. If we, the junior partners in what threatens to become a coalition of the unwilling, are seen to be both ungracious and ungrateful, we

cannot be surprised if Washington looks elsewhere for loyalty and support. If we complain about the lack of consultation in the conduct of US policy in Afghanistan, we should ask ourselves

why we were sidelined and ignored. The answer, surely, is that we have allowed the relationship to fall into disrepair. That is unlikely to be remedied by trading insults across the pond. At

the time of last year’s presidential election, Boris Johnson allegedly told an aide that his “lizard brain” would have been content to see a Trump victory. One can only hope that the

weekend reports about his nostalgia for the former President are wide of the mark. It is folly for him or other British ministers to suppose that Donald Trump would have been any less

cavalier in the process of withdrawing from Afghanistan. John Bolton, who knows his former boss far better than Boris Johnson, describes Trump and Biden as “Tweedledum and Tweedledee”, as

far as Afghanistan is concerned. He has “absolute confidence [the withdrawal] would have been just as chaotic” under Trump. Does Downing Street really have to be reminded that Donald Trump

still does not recognise the legitimacy of the Biden Administration? All that will be achieved by publicly questioning the sanity of the man who actually won last November and despairing of

the reliability of the Americans is to poison transatlantic relations still further. In fact, the British should be doing the opposite, namely hugging Biden and his entourage more closely. A

President who has few friends will value those who remain true to him more highly. There are no reports of Naftali Bennett muttering dark thoughts about Biden — no Israeli Prime Minister

can afford to alienate the country’s principal ally. Anti-Americanism, like anti-Semitism, is a disorder of the mind that drives politicians who succumb to it insane. Jeremy Corbyn is a

prime example of both. Boris Johnson comes from the opposite end of the spectrum: born in New York, instinctively pro-American and philosemitic. He should trust his instincts and work with

the President whom the American people, rightly or wrongly, have properly elected. Whatever we may think of Biden’s handling of Afghanistan — and here at _TheArticle _our writers_ _have

roasted him as harshly anyone — there is a difference between legitimate criticism and visceral antipathy. Where the US is concerned, the Prime Minister should swallow his pride and button

his lip. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and

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