A forthcoming government review is to warn that there are significant risks of civil war or a Taliban takeover of the country when Nato forces are withdrawn in 2014.
If they're withdrawn more like, and not left in place under some other guise, but we'll let that slide for now.
After 10 years, as highlighted in an excellent article on BNP Ideas, we've failed to achieve much in the way of any of the stated goals like fighting terrorism, the opium crop - all but eradicated under the Taliban - has soared, and we've left a country in ruins.
Afghanistan has just been a hole which has swallowed Western lives and Western money.
Our insane Afghan escapade has left the unenviable situation of more lives and money being spent to keep a puppet regime in place, or the collapse of the puppet regime should we withdraw.
There is simply no way the whole mess won't collapse when Western support is withdrawn, and the West has neither the resources or the will to remain there indefinitely.
As a nation we're sick of seeing our troops die in some far flung foreign war which we should never have been involved in to begin with.
Here are the only two scenarios that will happen. One is that we remain there, under some other guise like peacekeepers or humanitarian aid, so that the politicians can claim they've fulfilled pledges of withdrawal. We'll be there in one shape or another for decades.
Or, two, we withdraw, the Karzai regime won't last a year, we'll end up with either anarchy as tribal groups battle it out and jockey for position, or a hard line Islamic government. Not to mention a people who are angered by the mess we've left them in and the war that we have waged on their country.
Well done Blair and the other war mongers, a right mess you've got us and Afghanistan in, and it's a mess with no pretty way out.
A forthcoming government review is to warn that there are significant risks of civil war or a Taliban takeover of the country when Nato forces are withdrawn in 2014.
