War enters 10th year and spreads to Pakistan: British defence secretary calls for ‘patience’

Today, the war in Afghanistan enters its 10th year. At the Conservative Party conference, UK defence secretary Liam Fox called for Britain to be “patient and let the strategy run its course” in Afghanistan, arguing a precipitous retreat would be “a shot in the arm to violent jihadists everywhere”. He also said that he expected British troops to have left Afghanistan by 2015 – but stressed it would only be based on success on the ground. 

"Nato is here and they say they are fighting terrorism, and this is the 10th year and there is no result yet," Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an emotional speech last week. "Our sons cannot go to school because of bombs and suicide attacks". That is the reality on the ground. And with escalating US cross-border military incursions into Pakistan involving helicopter gunships and unmanned drones, it is no longer even tenable to talk about a war in Afghanistan. The US is at de facto war in two countries in South Asia—Afghanistan and Pakistan—and the prospect of an even wider, regional war spreading outwards from Afghanistan grows ever more likely.  

NATO Watch director Ian Davis said “In its obsession for killing real or imagined terrorists in Pakistan, the Pentagon does not seem to care that it is alienating the Pakistani security apparatus and fueling jihadist recruitment. The US special-forces deployments, CIA operations and drone attacks in Pakistan should be a grave concern to NATO allies, who have zero control over them, but can be expected to share in any ‘blowback’”. “However, there is little public debate”, he added “and more disturbingly, in what modest discussion there is, very few people seem to care. Certainly not the British defence secretary”.