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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Simon Jenkins

This fiasco didn’t start when Britain leaked Afghans’ names, but when we invaded their country

British troops board the last helicopter to leave Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, as UK forces withdraw, 27 October 2014.
British troops board the last helicopter to leave Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, as UK forces withdraw, 27 October 2014. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

What odds on a public inquiry into the Afghan superinjunction? Gold-plated, judge-led, three years of fun and games, that is how British politics normally kicks an embarrassment into the long grass. And what odds on who will get off scot free – Tony Blair?

The more we pick away at the stages of this fiasco, the more from the start one blunder seemed to follow inevitably from another. There was no reason for the British invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. If the US wanted revenge on the Kabul regime for harbouring al-Qaida after 9/11, it could have done what Donald Trump did last month to Iran. A savage retaliatory blow against the country’s rulers would have made the point.

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