Twenty-three years ago, I sat beside Hamid Karzai in his presidential office in Kabul, watching US bombers pound Saddam Hussein’s Iraq live on Al Jazeera.
It was clear the Afghan leader hated what he saw, concluding that the American-led war was mad and bad.
We both grimaced – and we were right. By invading Iraq, former US President George W Bush and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair incited a catastrophe. It led to civil war, hundreds of thousands of deaths, the trashing of international law, and trillions of dollars down the drain.
Today marks the 23rd anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, and the world is witnessing the same madness, bloodshed and horror – this time courtesy of another US president, Donald Trump.
In his Iran adventure, Trump naturally enjoys the support of Blair, who has criticised Prime Minister Keir Starmer for not showing stronger support for Britain’s allies in Washington.
But warmonger Blair has now retired from active politics. Trump’s primary ally in the Iran debacle is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Twenty-three years ago, Netanyahu (then an opposition politician) was one of the strongest advocates for the assault on Iraq.