Asking the wrong questions

The plot thickens

It is as if we are stuck in a hideous loop.

The plot thickens

It is as if we are stuck in a hideous loop. Every few months, it seems, Tony Blair is once again hauled up to give evidence to the never-ending Iraq inquiry. Each time he is dragged from a luxury hotel in some distant land to London, where he gives the younger political generation a masterclass in how to evade direct questioning. The questioning always proceeds along the same lines: why did we go to war? But the real scandal is the British army was defeated in Basra, and the Iraqi people abandoned to death squads. The question that should be asked is ‘why did we lose?’

The politics of decline have returned, and our political class are starting to regard Britain as an island with no business trying to shape the world. Foreign wars are now seen as a Blairish fad. Our Afghanistan campaign is seen almost as an embarrassing remnant of the Blair era.

In Afghanistan we are hearing the same sort of excuses that were used during the disgraceful retreat from Basra. There were no British reporters in southern Iraq, so there was no one to contradict the Blair narrative that stability had returned and we were ‘handing over to Iraqis’. But who were these Iraqis we handed over to? They were policemen loyal to Shi’ite militias who imposed a reign of Islamist terror on the city. Now we are being told that we are ‘handing over to Afghans’ in Helmand. And indeed we have lined up a few Western-friendly governors. But the reality is that soldiers on the ground report that the Taleban have already appointed a series of ‘shadow governors’ who are preparing to take power when we leave in three years’ time.