One thing that irritates me when our politicians-both Labour and Tory- are asked about the deepening difficulties in Afghanistan, is their unwillingness to link those problems with our devastating policy failure in Iraq.
We are being constantly told, not only by our politicians but our military, that the reason we are fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan is so we don't have to on the streets of London, Edinburgh or Newcastle. This is reminiscent of the nonsense of the Bush/Blair excuse for the invasion of Iraq!
Now that may or may not be true. After all, as RUSI's Michael Clarke emphasised on the Today progamme this morning, even if we were to clear out the Taliban from Afghanistan and Pakistan, there are many other failed or failing states al Qaeda could use as training camps. He suggested Somalia, Yemen or Southern Mali.
But even if the politicians are right about this, what is clear is that the the Iraqi debacle distracted both the US and UK from the real problem of Afghanistan. The cost of that disaster in both men an materials is the main cause of the problems we are experiencing in Afghanistan today.
Had we not followed Bush into Iraq in 2003, and dealt with the real threat in Afghanistan-for which there was a UN Resolution-the problem of the Afghanistan as a potential training ground for al Qaeda would have probably been resolved by now.
And it gets worse. Iraq provided an effective training for the Taliban who are using it to deadly effect in Helmand province today. Does anyone think that the improvised explosive devises being used so effectively today did not have their gestation in post 2001 Iraq?
