Comment is free: Power, politics and poppies -- Robert Fox

To paraphrase JF Kennedy's inaugural, it is not a question of what Afghanistan can do for Nato (coherence, identity, future purpose, etc) but what Nato, its parts, its nations and peoples, can do for Afghanistan. ---- The central issue for the British in Afghanistan is whether their current mission, and the concept of operations for pursuing it, makes sense. The stated purposes of the Blair-Brown administration for Afghanistan is fourfold: to sustain an independent pluriform government in Kabul, to whack the Taliban insurgents, to beat the drugs business and to stop a resurgence of al-Qaida. ---- The problem with the first job, to sustain a new pluriform government in Kabul, is that too much is riding on Hamid Karzai. He won't be there forever, for three years more at maximum, and the outside world musty prepare for what comes next.