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'Nobody is winning,' admits McChrystal
Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in London yesterday as US generals express doubts that the fight against the Taliban is having any success.
The US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who was boasting of military progress only three months ago, confessed last week that "nobody is winning". His only claim now is that the Taliban have lost momentum compared with last year.
Karzai's reception in London and Washington highlights the political dilemma of the US and UK in Afghanistan since both have more or less openly denounced the corruption of his regime and the mass fraud at the polls by which he was re-elected last year.
In a leaked memo, the US ambassador in Kabul, General Karl Eikenberry, said Karzai was "not an adequate strategic partner" and was interested only in using foreign troops to keep himself in power. One Afghan politician, who did not want his name published, added that "the problem is not that the Taliban is strong but that the government is so weak".