Wouldn't it be great if we could go back and talk to our younger selves. If i could have a chat with myself 10 years ago i could warn, praise and tell myself what turned out to be dead ends and what should be pursued.
What if Tony Blair and George W Bush had this ability and could go back a decade? Would they still give the go ahead for the Afghanistan and Iraq war knowing then what they know now?
I believe in the case of Iraq, they expected it to be a quick war, in and out with a long enough stop-over for photographs of happy Iraqis lauding them both, install a friendly face in power and back home to the acclaim of their respective nations.
As for Afghanistan, God only knows what they planned to do after the Taliban were removed.
So what would the 2010 George and Tony say to the 2001 ones? Would they say that they would do the same again and the trillion of pounds spent and the deaths in the millions on all sides were worth it?
Would they say that Iraq was a debacle and we are still in Afghanistan, achieving nothing and considering holding talks with the Taliban in order to get out so leave it all well alone?
Blair may be the proud owner of a few baubles from the United States but would he consider it a price worth paying especially as it cost him his Prime Minster job with the lowest ratings of any Labour Prime Minister?
Would Bush consider the cost of over $2 trillion of taxpayers money, over 4000 dead Americans and ramping up the hatred aimed at America a good return for the net gain of removing Saddam Hussein?
With no returning older and wiser selves to guide them, all they have as they are sat in their homes, watching the news are the thoughts that either they did a good job or the realisation dawning on them that they have made a complete and utter rickets of the whole thing.
Question is, would they do it all again? Question for those who supported both the wars, would you back them again?
2 comments:
i would hope they would suggest doing something different, but that doesn't mean that things today would be better for anybody, maybe not even iraqis and afghans...
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I would like to think that they would say the price in lives and financial costs was too high and go for the containment route in Iraq. Afghanistan had a fig leaf of respectibilty over it but it seemed a knee jerk with no thought to what they were going to do with it afterwards.
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