Paddy Ashdown: A strategy to save Afghanistan

Writing in the Financial Times today, former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown said:

With fighting in Afghanistan now entering its seventh year, no agreed international strategy, public support on both sides of the Atlantic crumbling, Nato in disarray and widening insecurity in Afghanistan, defeat is now a real possibility. The consequences for both Afghanistan and its allies would be appalling: global terrorism would have won back its old haven and created a new one over the border in a mortally weakened Pakistan; our domestic security threat would be gravely increased and a new instability would be added to the world’s most unstable region.

David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, is right – in the face of these consequences, withdrawal is not an option.

But then neither is continuing as we are.

Paddy’s answers are available on the Financial Times website.