'Britain sees India as a partner in Afghanistan'
The British are believed to be looking for an "acceptable dictator" in Afghanistan since the Taliban insurgency is only growing. They are believed to be privy to a set of "reconciliation" talks with the Taliban in Saudi Arabia, fuelling speculation that UK and other European countries are looking for a way out of Afghanistan, as it sinks into a security more. 
Are you looking for a "dictator" in Afghanistan?
We are not looking for a dictator in Afghanistan. What is of concern among our ministers in London and here, is the political and security situation. Some of the talk is, in our view excessively gloomy. This is winnable; we have a strategy for success, a long term strategy for success.
I said when I arrived there 18 months ago that this was a marathon, not a sprint, and Britain was in it for the long haul and we regard India as a major player in this. India as having legitimate interests in Afghanistan and India as a partner. And following the visit of our political director to New Delhi in May this year, he agreed with the Indian foreign secretary that we should step up our dialogue in a more formalised way. And so our embassies meet together regularly in Kabul, and our teams work together...
I cannot stress too strongly Britain's view and Gordon Brown spelt et this out in his statement to the Commons last December that we want all the regional actors dealt into this, taken seriously. And as part of that, two weeks ago I had talks in Tehran. Because all of us share the same objective of a stable secure prosperous Afghanistan that is again the crossroads of southwest Asia and is never again a haven for Islamist or any other kind of terrorism exporting it wherever it might be to the UK, India or elsewhere.
And we've got our work cut out. It's a huge country and one of the poorest countries in the world, 174 out of 178 in the human development index, extraordinary levels of illiteracy, life expectancy now 43 years, dropped from 44 last year. Above all, after 30 years of war, a lack of human capacity whether it is in the police, central government, or local government.
India has been exceptionally generous in its assistance to Afghanistan. 500 Afghans are over here on scholarships. India has been building roads helping with power generation and we welcome. We regard you as partners in this great enterprise.
What is the strategy?
The headline of the strategy is to restore Afghans the capacity to govern and secure the country for themselves.
How do you do that?
You do that in a variety of ways. You do that by tough security measures, building up the Afghan army, building up the police, engaging with district governors, building up security, working to create district level security structures.
There is no military solution, but there is no non military solution. There has to be applied military pressure, whether it is in terms of manoeuvre forces operating in the Helmand river valley or up in the mountains of Hindu Kush. There has to be targeted strikes against Taliban commanders.
Why is the military strategy not working?
Because it's necessary but not sufficient. You need a hammer and anvil. You need to apply military pressure to the Taliban and you need also to show the disaffected populations predominantly but not exclusively of the Pashtun belt that there is a place for them in an Afghan political settlement, to restore their faith in government and governance.
That hasn't happened in all these years...
It's starting to happen. It happened. We had many years of huge success, Five million refugees back, health, education, mobile phones, and remarkable resurgence in a free media. But what has happened is the Taliban insurgency has infected areas where there are no Afghan government or ISAF antibodies. ISAF with 60000 troops, afghan army also with 60000 the police with about 80,000 they're not enough. So the infection has spread. It's not that the people like the Taliban. They've had a test drive of the Taliban and they did not like the experience. But people are being faced with this awful choice. DO they submit to the Taliban who are terrorising them who are riding into their villages and behead anybody who collaborated with the government? Or do they wait for Afghan governments to be built up, with the police force that has a reputation for being predatory. Its slow difficult work and it's all about security and all about governance, underpinned by reconstruction and development.
Do NATO countries want an exit strategy?
Our strategy is of Afghanisation, of a civilian-led, politically driven, counter-insurgency strategy and more coherent sustained international support for Afghanistan and its government. I wouldn't be surprised if we had DFID operating in Afghanistan for 50 years. I will expect there to be British military trainers and mentors in Afghanistan. What we want to do, for good counterinsurgency reasons, to get our troops out of direct combat operations. So it is Afghans doing the fighting, not foreign forces. And we're seeing that. The commanding general of ISAF, Gen David McKiernan issued an order the other day that at least 50 per cent of all operations need to be Afghan-led. And already we're seeing in Helmand valley, in regional command east facing the mountains and up to the Durand line. The afghan army taking part in a great majority of the operations.
The numbers are increasing all the time. Afghan army one of the great success stories __ agreed by the international aid coordination body to raise the numbers to 134000 over 2-3 years. We've got a cunning plan, we've got a strategy. But we need patience and commitment for the long term.
Are supposed "reconciliation" talks in Saudi Arabia being used to give some Europeans countries a way out of Afghanistan?
Absolutely not. The reconciliation talks are hugely overblown. There's been a lot of nonsense talked about Britain's role in reconciliation talks. The point about those talks is that you start trying to reconcile Taliban who are prepared to accept the Afghan constitution, prepared to accept basic principles of human rights. Only much further down the road when u have kept up the military pressure, __ they've got to be Afghan-led, you cannot have foreigners involved in them. The Saudis may be able to play a facilitating role, but there was less to the talks in Saudi Arabia than met the eye. They've been hugely exaggerated. There is a role, in all insurgencies, for having contacts, so people know when they get dispirited that they know who to contact, if they want to come over. But it's got to be as a result of sustained military pressure.
Is that military pressure on?
Yes. I've seen it myself. We may sit around in Delhi London and Washington worried about this great task. But we know that the Taliban high command, sitting around wherever they are, have had a bad year as well, and they're quite dispirited.
There's an interesting point about public opinion in the west. I think we're in for an interesting period. Because president elect, Barack Obama has made it clear that he regards Afghanistan as one of his major foreign policy priorities. He will have a lot of allies around the world who will want to work with the new American administration. And one of the things he will ask them to do is do more in Afghanistan. Now we have to work with the realities of European democracy. In reality, in the majority of European countries the support for combat troops is quite slim. But any human being will not want Afghanistan to plunge back into a new dark age. That would be the consequence of pulling out.
The Taliban would take over, Kandahar would fall. So we have to stick in there. Withdrawal is not an option.
But the way to sustain public support in the west and elsewhere is by having a plan, a flight path as it were, for moving our troops gradually out of direct combat operations into a mentoring role.
I believe our public will support us being a generous donor to Afghanistan almost indefinitely. What worries voters back in UK, Canada, Netherlands is too many of our troops dying. And that is why our strategy of putting Afghan national security forces up front supported and mentored by NATO and 40 countries.
That is in the medium and long term. In the immediate term, is there another option from putting in more troops there?
President Obama wants more troops there. We would support that to buy space in the short term. But in the long term, everyone agrees, Afghans have to help to secure their country for themselves.
How do you deal with Pakistan?
Very tricky and very sensitive. What is welcome is that president Zardari seems to understand Pakistan's interests lie in a good relationship with Afghanistan and India.
Does he control that?
Well, we need to help him and reinforce him and his prime minister. You do need to work with what you've got not what you wish to have. And we have a Pakistani president who is committed to fighting terrorism, to working with President Karzai, who understands that the Taliban and Talibanization are a threat to governments on both sides of the Durand line.
What do you want him to do?
There are all sorts of detailed things. We would like to see us, Afghanistan, Pakistan, US, NATO adopting a more holistic approach to problems of insurgency on both sides of the Durand Line. It's the same tribes, the same pool, and same tradition of Pakhtoonwali. It needs an approach which combines use of military force, police action, with a major development effort, raise these tribes in isolated valleys, who in many ways the 20th century has passed them by. And connecting them with the modern world.
But none of this is possible without security?
Security is necessary but never enough.
What's the timeframe?
Not going to spell out a specific timeframe. We're almost infinitely patient. But we also have a sense of urgency. We will stick this out.
Is your approach different from the European approach?
No and it's identical to the American approach. There's not a cigarette paper between us.
Your reported comment on the "dictator" gave quite a different impression of where you are...
Because it's what a lot of people wanted to believe, that Afghanistan needs a dictator. I've never thought it, let alone said it. The telegram said "the British ambassador and deputy approached me" which wasn't true. And he gives a mixture of views, most of which are his, with some of ours mixed in, neither my deputy nor I said that a dictator was needed in Afghanistan.
The country is so large and government is so weak that you cannot rule it my force. You have to rule it by a degree of consent between the different groups. Put in shorthand, there is no government to dictate with.
That brings me to the point that I can't emphasise enough. We regard all the regional players including India, Iran, Russia, and China as stakeholders in this project. As Gordon Brown said, we would like a more formal structure for engaging them (the neighbours) in this.
Is that a proposal?
It is a proposal. It's something we need to discuss with an incoming American president and administration. . And maybe in the months ahead we will see something like that. Meanwhile, at a bilateral level, we are strengthening our contacts with India on Afghanistan. In different ways, from different perspectives, we share the same objectives.
Do you have any shape in mind?
We wouldn't want to be prescriptive, but some sort of contact group, consultative mechanism, which recognise that these countries have a stake in this, because these countries are damaged if Afghanistan goes wrong. And you are spending large sums of Indian taxpayer's money to get this right. China is investing over $3 billion in Afghanistan. Pakistan too would be part of it. Pakistan also if it thinks for a moment has a stake in a stable secure Afghanistan. That is our vision. With cogent coherent leadership we can see that happening in the months and years ahead. It requires statesmanship, leadership, but above all, a perception of common interests.
What about troops?
I doubt it, for obvious reasons. If we don't hang together, we will assuredly hang separately. We've had enough trouble out of Afghanistan in recent decades.
One of the things I'd stress we have to do is bring the traditional conservative religious Pashtun nationalism into the deal. We can't settle Afghanistan by backing one lot against the other. Historically, in order to make Afghanistan work it has to be a settlement in which all groups within Afghanistan and their sponsors and neighbours all see that the common interest is served by a stable state. We need to recognize that there is a conservative religious nationalist sentiment in the Pashtuns.
The talks in Saudi Arabia...
There was one meal. You need to keep up the military pressure. What we're lacking is that representatives of the Afghan government at the local level to go out to say to the tribes if you join us we will pay you for development etc. If you step out of line, we will punish you. We need to create that sort of structure for provincial governors, district chiefs, to give them the machinery to do that.
There is a rather encouraging structure that already operates, called the National Solidarity programme. Some 20,000 community development councils who are given money, from some donors, through a series of NGOs. The money is handed out to local shuras and local jirgas for them to decide how to spend it themselves, and replicating that in the security field and counter-narcotics field, where there is a great overlap.
Where is your counter-narcotics strategy?
There is increasingly disturbing evidence that the insurgency is being financed by the tax on narcotics. If you look at the areas on the map where there is most violence there's also the most poppy cultivation. Almost a 90 per cent overlap. We all see counter-narcotics as a sub-set of counter-insurgency. It's good news that last year we went up from 13 poppy-free provinces to 18 poppy-free provinces this year. More than half of Afghanistan's provinces are poppy free. We've reached a plateau, I believe.
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