Why did we ignore the lessons of history in Afghanistan? We need a public inquiry | Jonathan Steele

The US and Britain's dogged pursuit of reform and regime change made the return of the Taliban almost inevitable

When rising British casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq started to raise public doubts 15 years ago, a new mantra began to be heard: Iraq was a war of choice, Afghanistan a war of necessity. The argument was that the US and its faithful ally, Britain, had launched an invasion in Iraq that was unjustified as it was based on a false premise: the hollow claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

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