Did anyone believe in it post-2003, apart from senior army officers desperate to distract attention from the morass in Iraq?
We should have got out after making our point to AQ and the TB in 2001; it would have been easier to go back every 5 years to clear them out again, rather than to try to develop a stable western-looking state. Which itself was an idea dreamed up by some promotion-seeking Ruperts desperate to sell the deployment of a brigade to some vain, gullible politicians. 'Home by Christmas' / 'Without a shot being fired' etc
