Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles: a casualty of Afghan policy war

[CHIMO]

The sudden departure of Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, Britain's special envoy to Afghanistan, represents another body blow for a US-led policy that is already shredding at the edges.

Cowper-Coles brought a wealth of experience and hardheaded pragmatism to a problem – the Afghan intervention begun in 2001 – bedevilled by fond hopes, misperceptions and sheer ignorance. The former UK ambassador was also unafraid to speak his mind, even when that meant potentially upsetting the grand panjandrums of the Pentagon and their equally self-regarding political masters at the White House.

Cowper-Coles made no secret of his doubts about US strategy in private discussions during a recent meeting in London. The Afghan war lacked a military solution, he said, and the sooner this fact was faced, and new emphasis placed on a diplomatic approach, the better for all concerned.

This strongly-held opinion, of which the Americans could not fail to be aware, was exactly what Barack Obama and General Stanley McChrystal, Nato's commander, did not want to hear. After a lengthy policy review last year, in which Britain was barely consulted, Obama decided to send a surge of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan and escalate the war, principally in the southern Taliban strongholds. McChrystal was given the job of reducing the Taliban militarily to the point at which they would effectively sue for peace at almost any price.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/21/sir-sherard-cowper-coles-afghanistan