No helicopters off the embassy roof just yet
Afghanistan was always going to be a tougher challenge than Iraq. The pre-2003 Iraqi state was horrific but it was a state. It largely held the monopoly on violence, and enjoyed a clear balance of power relative to the individual, the clan, and the ethnic/religious groups. Even in the darkest days before the surge, the collective Iraqi memory made it more conducive to nation building. Properly resourced (people, time, money, equipment, and perhaps most importantly ideas), the Iraq project always had a reasonable chance of success. Afghanistan, by contrast, has never been a proper state. The odds were always against us.
And now it’s over, for the Brits at least.
Christina Lamb writes that the order from Whitehall was to do nothing that looks like “helicopters fleeing from the roofs of Saigon”. They need a lesson in history. After Creighton Abrams arguably won the Vietnam War following Westmoreland’s sacking, US ground forces were withdrawn in 1971. Vietnamization was taking hold until the Democratic Congress started slashing funding. Then the ARVN collapsed. Then Saigon fell. Then the helicopters left the roof of the US embassy — four years after ground forces left.
In other words, we still might have helicopters off the roofs in Kabul. And Baghdad, for that matter.
Perhaps the MOD should have focused on the bit that followed the helicopters: millions sent to re-education camps, tens if not hundreds of thousands executed, and millions emigrating in precarious little boats.
