The potential PM\u2019s plan to cut benefits and boost defence spending merely serves her craving for the theatre of conflict<\/p>\n
Was anything learned? On the first anniversary of Britain\u2019s defeat in Afghanistan there is only silence. The previous defeat in Iraq saw a searing public inquiry<\/a> in 2016. It concluded that Iraq had posed \u201cno imminent threat<\/a>\u201d. The war was \u201cunnecessary\u201d, and based on dodgy intelligence, dubious legality and feeble attempts at avoidance. But Iraq was the \u201cbad\u201d war. Afghanistan was always the \u201cgood\u201d one. Hence no public inquiry<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> in 2001. Strategists including America\u2019s secretary of state Colin Powell and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned against \u201cowning\u201d and \u201cnation-building\u201d Afghanistan. But with \u201cmission accomplished<\/a>\u201d, Bush and Blair could not resist. The US was to spend an estimated $1tn<\/a> there in an effort to create a westernised colony, a monument to democratic values in the heart of Muslim Asia.<\/p>\n Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n