Afghanistan

David Milliband, the Foreign Secretary has just made a speech in the U.S which was peppered with anxieties and caveats about political progress in this troubled country in which we have no business to be. However since we are there and our brave troops are dying almost daily, we need to know that all these clever strategems about which we constantly hear, the surges, drives, democratisation and so on are working.

We bear in mind  the confrontational aspect of U.S and U.K  policy towards Iran and link that to news that President Karzai, in addition to taking personal  control of what was supposed to be the independent electoral commission has welcomed none other than President Ahmadinejad, describing him as a ‘friend’. His friend then laid into the American ‘occupation’ explaining with a rather sharp appreciation of the sensitivities, that it was America’s policy to create terrorists in order to fight them. All this was going on while Robert Gates, U.S Secretary of Defense and head of the most powerful military in the world, was on a simultaneous visit. Secretary Gates described the Iranian President’s visit as ‘annoying’. Indeed. Hmmm.

Are we sure that everything is going according to plan?