UN chief: Afghan military strategy doomed without big changes

The military strategy in Afghanistan is seriously flawed and is doomed to failure without major adjustments, the outgoing head of the UN there has warned. Kai Eide, who will stand down as UN Special Representative in March, was withering in his assessment of the Afghan surge recently set in motion by President Obama. He warned that the military focus was at the expense of a "meaningful, Afghan-led political strategy" and that Western troops and governments had left Afghans feeling that they faced "cultural invasion". Speaking to The Times before today's conference on Afghanistan, he said that the international community must stop operating according to "strategies and decisions that are taken far away from Afghanistan." "Very unfortunately, the political strategy has become an appendix to the military strategy. The strategy has to be demilitarized–a political strategy with a military component."