Last week, a bipartisan Afghanistan War Committee At its first public hearing since its establishment in 2021, foreign policy thought leaders testified about the origins of the conflict and the importance of reexamination. It was a solemn and noble undertaking, based on George Santayana’s famous dictum that “those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” The logic is that by examining 20 years of Western deployment in Afghanistan, we can see what went wrong and avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
The Committee Created by Parliament Its purpose is twofold: first, to conduct a detailed study of what happened once time has settled; and second, and more importantly, to “develop a set of lessons learned and recommendations for future ways of moving forward that can inform future decisions by policymakers in Congress and across the U.S. government.” The commission will be made up of 16 members, eight appointed by Democrats and eight by Republicans, and co-chaired by David Coleman. Sharmila N. ChaudharyHe is a foreign policy scholar who served in the State Department and National Security Council under President Barack Obama. Colin JacksonHe served in Afghanistan as a Pentagon official under President Donald Trump.
This historical analysis and learning process is expected to take four years. To put this in perspective, newly commissioned infantry officers who deployed to Afghanistan at the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 may be generals by the time the commission issues its conclusions. NATO combat operations ended a decade ago at the end of 2014, when responsibility was handed over to the Afghan National Security Forces, and it has been nearly three years since U.S. troops withdrew from the country.
This obvious model National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Against the United StatesThe so-called 9/11 Commission was created to establish “a full and detailed accounting of the circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks.” But this organization moved at an entirely different pace, being established just 13 months after the events it investigated and delivering its report in July 2004, less than three years after 9/11.
the 585-page report It’s heavy and detailed, but easy to use. Character Many of them were still in their jobs, including President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor, and the Director of the FBI. The Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, had only resigned a few weeks earlier.
A more useful comparison may come from the British experience. As the former Chief Civil Service Officer, Lord Butler, wrote: Short review When information about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was made public in early 2004, a year after the coalition invasion, many saw it as a whitewash by the regime. In 2009, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: A full public investigation It investigated all aspects of UK involvement in Iraq between 2001 and 2009. It was chaired by Sir John Chilcot, a former civil servant who was formally Secretary of State for the Northern Ireland Office for seven years and has many years of experience in intelligence and security.
The Iraq Commission of Inquiry held hearings for 18 months and finally released its findings in 2016, seven years after it was established. Its findings were undeniably thorough. report The report, which consists of 12 volumes and summaries totaling 2.6 million words, is a wide-ranging and harsh critique of the conduct of British foreign policy. It concludes that “the government failed to achieve its stated objectives,” that “the consequences of the invasion were underestimated,” and that “planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq was completely inadequate.”
These findings were widely reported at the time, and Prime Minister David Cameron A statement was issued I briefed the House of Commons on the publication of the report. But in reality, the response was modest. Sir Tony Blair had left office nine years ago, the first foreign secretary, Robin Cook, was dead, and the second foreign secretary, Jack Straw, was no longer an MP. Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, had disappeared into the private sector, and the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, had become a largely forgotten footnote. Frankly, politics had moved on.
If government agencies have learned a lesson, it is that large-scale land grabs in the Middle East have been financially and reputationally disastrous. British combat troops were withdrawn from Iraq in 2011 and Afghanistan in 2015. The hope held by some that there will be retribution for the “guilty” only lasts if you consider that Sir Tony Blair is now publicly disgraced and in dire straits. Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, and Blair’s pugnacious communications director, Alastair Campbell, are not respected consultants or broadcasters.
When the Afghanistan War Commission publishes its report at the end of the 2020s, it may well produce an impeccably insightful and indispensable analysis of US developments in the region. There may well be some lessons for foreign policy experts to absorb and put into practice. But given the experience of the British Iraq Inquiry, I can only advise anyone to manage their expectations if they think that Washington’s international position will fundamentally change or that individuals will be held to account. That is too far in the past.
Elliot Wilson is a freelance writer on politics and international affairs and co-founder of the Pivot Point Group. He served as a senior member of the British House of Commons from 2005 to 2016, including as secretary of the Defence Committee and secretary of the UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
