Fomer U.S. Rep. Ron Paul says that after more than a decade of war in the Middle East, the United States has learned absolutely nothing.

Mr. Paul, in his weekly column, cites the Taliban’s recent opening of an office in Doha, Qatar, saying that while it was meant to serve only as a new venue for talks on how to end the war in Afghanistan, “the Taliban opening looked very much like a government in exile.”

“For years, many of us had argued the need to get out of Afghanistan,” the Texas Republican writes. “We cannot leave, we were told for all those years. If we leave Afghanistan now, the Taliban will come back! Well guess what, after 12 years, trillions of dollars, more than 2,200 Americans killed, and perhaps more than 50,000 dead Afghan civilians and fighters, the Taliban is coming back anyway!

“We left Iraq after a decade of fighting, and the country is in far worse shape than when we attacked in 2003,” he continued. “After trillions of dollars wasted and tens of thousands of lives lost, Iraq is a devastated, desperate and violent place with a presence of al Qaeda. No one in his right mind speaks of a U.S. victory in Iraq these days. We learned nothing from it.”

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