Afghan Conference Gives Us Nothing New

By Steve Hynd

Here's the official communique from the London conference on Afghanistan today.

And here's the best commentary on it you'll find, one written in advance with total accuracy:

As ever in the noble art of diplomatic summitry, it is all about upside down news. Let me explain. This is the Afghan conference. As with all such international honcho-fests, nothing can really be allowed to go wrong on the day. Ever.

Thus it is, that all the news about what happened here today, was very likely in your papers, radios and TV screens last night and this morning. They have more or less set it all out in the round of lead-up interviews.

What is happening today is simply the actual conferencing.

It is of course, just about still possible that something might go wrong, this being Afghanistan. But since the whole thing is populated by delegates at foreign minister level, all of whose jobs depend upon not rocking the already rocky boat of Kabul, nothing much will actually happen that you have not already read about if you care.

So it is that the outside world has come togdether to answer one question. Since we are not winning the war, what is Plan B?

To nobody's great surprise, the answer in large measure seems to be: bribe the Taliban to stop killing our soldiers on the one hand and somehow force President-without-mandate Karzai to cut down the massive kleptocracy which passes for government in Kabul.

The aim is still to begin papering over the cracks and head for the exits, with a drawdown beginning next year so that Obama can point to actual troops leaving and all "combat troops" probably out in 3 years. A "non-combat" residual force will stay for some indeterminate time to train Afghan security forces they'll never be able to afford at those levels and Western money will be pouring in for a decade and more.

If this sounds a lot like Iraq to you, well you'd be right. Apparently there is a lesson which can be taken from one misadventure and be applied wholesale to the other.

The London conference is to be followed by one in Kabul later this year. In between, there's to be a Loyal Peace Jirga. The latter will be where all the really interesting and potentially upsetting stuff happens.