Preemptive Strike

Thank goodness that all pretence at an "Atlantic Alliance" or a "Special Relationship" has ended. In characteristically gung-ho fashion, the Americans have already gone back into Afghanistan, this time as active allies of the Taliban against the Islamic State-Khorasan Province.

Khorasan. Yes, I bet you did. Although at least you will have bothered. A delegation of, say, Nuristanis, whom some other Afghans still call "Kafirstanis" (go on, there's no shame in it), ought to be invited to resolve the questions of Scottish independence, the Irish Border, the status of Gibraltar, and the status of the Falkland Islands. They would know exactly as much about those things as anyone in the Westminster Village had ever known about Afghanistan.

Yet the Foreign Affairs Select Committee intends to "investigate" this completely catastrophic war. That Committee is chaired by a 77th Brigade Reservist who openly wants to be Prime Minister, which gives his machinations the distinct air of a coup. He is one of six of its 11 members to be Conservatives of that stripe.

Another two are Blairite fundamentalists, while a ninth member is from the SNP, which supported the Blair Government so strongly over Afghanistan that John Swinney proposed a Holyrood motion in those terms. Afghanistan has been Britain's most utterly pointless military adventure since the First World War. Yet even after a century, the donkeys are still going to be allowed to "investigate" themselves.