Is there a more agonising decision for a British premier to make than to send troops into harm's way? In recent weeks, various ministers have been heard privately despairing at the rising British military death toll in Afghanistan.
With the British government preparing to commit 500 extra troops to the region, adding to the 9,000 currently deployed there, Gordon Brown is now said by Downing Street insiders to regard himself, if unexpectedly, as a "war leader". But as we draw to the close of the bloodiest year for British armed forces since the Falklands war in 1982, public patience with this conflict appears to be running out, and seven in ten voters now favour withdrawal, according to a recent ComRes poll.
Unbowed, the Prime Minister remains hawkish and, in a speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet on 16 November, he argued that he would "never succumb to appeasement". To some observers, David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, appeared to present a subtly different message at the Nato parliamentary assembly the next day when he emphasised the need for a "political surge". In fact, Miliband was only repeating what he has said before, and a Downing Street source says that Brown personally asked the Foreign Secretary to address the "political" as well as the "military" strategy when the two men met at the bi-weekly Ministerial Committee on National Security, International Relations and Development.
But have Brown and Miliband got the balance right? Before the flawed results of the Afghan presidential elections were officially confirmed, Brown telephoned Hamid Karzai, the incumbent, to persuade him to agree to run a second round. However, in the eyes of a raft of generals, diplomats and regional experts, Karzai remains a key obstacle to progress on the ground, and the British government's apparent U-turns on the legitimacy of Karzai's "re-election" illustrate the complexities of this conflict.
Despite the headlines around his set-piece speech, the Prime Minister was not heralding an "exit strategy" and I understand he remains committed to sending at least 500 extra troops after Karzai's inauguration on 19 November.
However, the British military strategy is firmly dependent upon decisions made in Washington - where President Obama has been criticised for "dithering" on whether to increase US troop levels by up to 40,000 in Afghanistan. This was clear last week when Brown said at prime minister's questions that he was hoping for a decision from Obama "in the next few days". With a presidential decision pending, and no end to the conflict in sight, the war is emerging as a critical issue for all three of the main British political parties.
Haunted house
David Cameron is aware that the conflict will haunt whichever party returns to power next year. Military figures, including the retired brigadier Ed Butler, have privately told him that Afghanistan would be his "biggest foreign policy challenge". However, the Tory front bench has this year been quick to exploit public dismay over British soldiers' deaths and a perceived shortage of equipment. The shadow defence secretary, Liam Fox, has even accused the Prime Minister of a "betrayal of our armed forces". Doubtless, there is short-term gain in opportunistically criticising the handling of the war (although, as with Iraq, the Tories have broadly supported the Afghan intervention). The Sun certainly thought so, with its self-defeating attack on Brown's letter of condolence to the grieving mother of a dead soldier. But whatever its oppositionist instincts, it would be wise for a party preparing for office, and for a war that they would inherit, to behave more responsibly.
So, what of the Liberal Democrats who took such a strong position in opposition to the Iraq debacle? On Afghanistan, Nick Clegg has - so far - held back from deploying the "withdrawal card". But he knows that any leader of his party must take distinctive positions to get heard, as Charles Kennedy did so successfully on Iraq in 2003. Kennedy said this week: "David Steel once observed that if you're not prepared to live a little dangerously as our leader then the bigger risk is that you don't live at all. I agree with him." But senior Lib Dem sources tell me that Paddy Ashdown, Kennedy's predecessor and the man once touted as an envoy to Afghanistan, is urging Clegg to "hold firm" and resist a more doveish approach. Lord Ashdown has warned of the dangers of "failure or withdrawal", citing especially the impact on Pakistan; but, like Clegg, he has no faith in Karzai. The direction in which Clegg takes his party now could help determine its electoral fortunes next year.
“True believers"
Meanwhile, deep inside Whitehall there are "true believers", officials who remain implacably opposed to the idea of scaling back the conflict - no matter what Obama decides - convinced that the presence of our troops on the streets of Lashkar Gah protects civilians on the streets of London. Yet the reality is, as with Iraq, that the UK's military commitment to Afghanistan revolves around the US. Military figures, including Butler, concede that the UK is still in Afghanistan because of the attacks of 11 September 2001. As the counter-insurgency expert John Mackinlay of King's College London says: "Being in Helmand is the price we pay for being at the top strategic table with the Americans. But no politician has the courage to go down to the funeral and tell the grieving mother . . . [that is] the reason your son died".
It is an eerie echo of the situation with Iraq in 2003. If Brown stakes too much on a war that has become his own, in which British casualties continue to rise inexorably and whose direction is determined by Washington, he may yet regret becoming a "war leader".
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