Was anything learned? On the first anniversary of Britain’s defeat in Afghanistan there is only silence. The previous defeat in Iraq saw a searing public inquiry in 2016. It concluded that Iraq had posed “no imminent threat”. The war was “unnecessary”, and based on dodgy intelligence, dubious legality and feeble attempts at avoidance. But Iraq was the “bad” war. Afghanistan was always the “good” one. Hence no public inquiry.
Afghanistan was the worst fiasco of British foreign policy since Suez. Eager to curry favour with George W Bush in his craving for revenge for 9/11, Tony Blair lost his senses and went on a post-imperial romp. Under Nato auspices and using mercenaries from the Northern Alliance, the Taliban were driven south out of Kabul in 2001. Strategists including America’s secretary of state Colin Powell and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned against “owning” and “nation-building” Afghanistan. But with “mission accomplished”, Bush and Blair could not resist. The US was to spend an estimated $1tn there in an effort to create a westernised colony, a monument to democratic values in the heart of Muslim Asia.
