The defeatists

Nato’s leadership is now united in readiness to surrender Afghanistan

The leaders of the 50 or so countries attending Nato’s spectacular jamboree in Chicago this weekend will arrive knowing that they can at least agree on one issue: ending Nato’s ill-fated mission to Afghanistan at the earliest possible opportunity.

Normally Nato summits have a habit of degenerating into unseemly squabbles between the 28 member states over important areas of policy. Only last year, there was an open rift among the big Nato powers over Libya, with pro-regime-change countries such as Britain and France falling foul of the more pragmatic Germans, who questioned the wisdom of removing the Gaddafi clan when the West had no clue as to who might emerge as the new masters of Tripoli. It is a question that remains as valid today as it did last summer.

No such misgivings, though, will distract the delegates’ deliberations in Chicago. While the Taleban and their al-Qa’eda allies pose an immeasurably greater threat to our daily wellbeing than Gaddafi’s mob ever did — particularly after the mad colonel gave up his nukes and lost interest in backing the IRA and other terror groups — Nato is effectively giving up on its decade-long campaign to subdue the insurgents and turn Afghanistan into something approaching a stable and functioning state.