Twenty years ago when the United States was sucked into the Afghan cesspool, pundits were divided about the ultimate aim of intervention. President George W Bush talked of GWOT (remember the acronym?) or Global War on Terror. His critics argued that, unless it led to nation-building in Afghanistan, the intervention would make no sense.
Two decades later, the intervention has not advanced GWOT, as Islamist terrorism has spread to two dozen countries in Asia and Africa, with sleeper cells in Latin America. As for nation-building, the US has instead ended up with a travel agency based in Kabul airport under an astonishingly incompetent management.
