Afghanistan Follow

One year ago British defence secretary Des Browne was asked if the occupation in Afghanistan had "turned the corner".

Many of the world’s leaders are treating Barack Obama as the US "president in waiting". They are urging him to find a way to stabilise Afghanistan and cool tensions in the Middle East.

The battle for a military outpost in a forgotten corner of Afghanistan has vividly exposed the turmoil inside the Nato-led occupation of the country.

The war in Afghanistan is spiralling so dangerously out of control that it now threatens to engulf Pakistan, in a process that is being actively encouraged by Nato.

In March 1836 Lord Auckland, the British governor of India, wrote to the Afghan ruler Amir Dost Mohammed with no apparent sense of irony, "You are aware that it is not the practice of the British government to interfere with the affairs of other independent states."

After the Second World War and the independence of India, Britain declined as an imperial power and the US replaced it.

US warplanes killed at least 27 women and children who were escorting a bride to a wedding party in Afghanistan last Sunday.

The US is so bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan that recent threats by Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear sites has sent waves of panic through the US military.

The Afghans know it. The soldiers on the ground know it. And now the Pentagon has admitted it. The occupation in Afghanistan is in severe crisis.

According to recent pronouncements by British ministers, US officials and Nato generals, the war in Afghanistan is almost over. All that is required is one final surge of troops and the Taliban will surrender, they say.

The US Congress has approved a £83 billion war chest for Afghanistan and Iraq – with the vital votes of the Democrats. The new round of funding will push the cost of the occupations to £330 billion.