Anniversary of 9/11 and fall of Kabul trigger questions over US interventionism
The 20th anniversary of 9/11 and its fallout was always going to be a moment of deep soul searching about what has been lost and learned.
But the retrospective, until a few weeks ago, risked having a historical, even sepia, quality as the attention of political leaders moved to a more contemporary set of threats – health pandemics, climate emergencies, Big Tech and great power competition, including the rise of China. The “war on terror”, after all, looked if not won, at least drawn. It was even possible Islamist terrorism was a temporary manageable phenomenon, increasingly confined to Africa and some lethal loners in European shopping centres.
