We never learn from history, not even the most recent sort

The only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.

- CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH Clive Stafford Smith OBE

You’ve probably heard that before, and it’s a phrase I overuse. It must be modified for the situation in the Middle East: we don’t even learn from recent affairs. I have spent a lot of time in Afghanistan recently, where the ‘war on terror’ led to the longest ever American war. Estimates of the money spent on 21 years of Afghan carnage range up to $6 trillion (£4.5 trillion), and it caused tens of thousands of deaths. The result? Nothing achieved. The Taliban are back in power, running a state increasingly premised on gender apartheid, alienated from the Western world.

Our interventions in the region since the new millennium reflect a clear pattern: the US, the UK and their allies decrying evil governments, firing their Hellfire missiles from their Predator drones, and creating even greater chaos. We eventually leave, and bemoan the failure of each country in turn to metamorphosise into a democratic nirvana.

Always we had our excuses for dropping our bombs: in Afghanistan, it was September 11, though there was precious little evidence that Afghans had anything to do with it. In Syria, it was Isis. Apparently, we were on the verge of global destruction because of Iran.