Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
20 Years after 9/11 – assessing the war on terror
Stop the War's CHRIS NINEHAM says Western foreign policy over the past two decades has been absolutely disastrous – but the warmongers haven't gone away
Smoke bollows from the destroyed World Trade Centre in New York following the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers

TWENTY years on from the tragedy of 9/11 the images of the chaotic cut and run from Afghanistan have exposed a deep crisis in Western foreign policy. 

The media has concentrated on the shambolic nature of the withdrawal. This revealed a failure of intelligence and the complete inability of the occupying powers to understand the situation on the ground. 

Just a few weeks before the Taliban victory, experts were insisting that the Afghan National Army would be able to hold the Taliban back for months, maybe longer.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
SERIOUS INTENT OR ACTING PRO FORMA? Iran's Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni, first from left, meets Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, right, in Islamabad, Pakistan, yesterday Pic: Pakistan Prime Minister Office via AP
Middle East / 22 July 2026
22 July 2026

The war crimes of US imperialism in its third military aggression against Iran and the necessity of confronting the devastating policy of ‘War, war until victory’!

An excavator removes rubble as a firefighter sprays water on smoldering debris at the site of a strike that destroyed half of the Khorasaniha Synagogue and nearby residential buildings in Tehran, Iran, April 7, 2026
Middle East / 14 April 2026
14 April 2026

From Vietnam to Iran, US leaders repeat a failed strategy of terror bombing – one that history shows cannot break a determined, resilient society, says DYLAN MURPHY

Dick Cheney in Iraq
US Politics / 7 November 2025
7 November 2025

ANDREW MURRAY looks back on the ignominious career of the former US vice-president, who died earlier this week

rethinking
Book Review / 26 September 2025
26 September 2025

ALEX HALL is frustrated by a book that ducks a clear definition of terrorism and fails to perceive the role of the state in sponsoring it