It's A Plane, It's A Bird
Oh. Wait. Hey! What kind of SuperEnvoy is this guy?
Nato has "lost in Afghanistan" and its failure to bring stability there could provoke a regional sectarian war "on a grand scale", according to Lord Ashdown.
Luckily, the role of SuperEnvoy isn't sewn up for Lord Here is the list of candidates to play the Caped Crusader (Hey - Crusader! Just like George W. Bush!)
Apart from Lord Ashdown, candidates under consideration for the new enhanced role include Joschka Fischer, the former German foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, the serving French foreign minister, and Jaroslav Kaczynski, the former Polish prime minister who lost Sunday's general election.
Ooh. An election loser, eh... Oh well, as long as everybody understands this is a sovereign country we're invading here:
A senior diplomat who declined to be named said: "The overall leadership here is that of President Karzai."So whoever takes on this role needs to be able to co-ordinate the international community but also serve the interests and structures of a sovereign state."
Check. Okay. All systems are go.
Say, remember this? Operation Enduring Freedom? I'd forgotten all about that cornball name for this subsidiary of the War on Terror:
It is understood that the super envoy would have the existing duties of the UN representative but also greater powers to co-ordinate the rebuilding of the country after decades of war. Progress in reconstruction and development - especially in the violent south - has been sporadic and considered largely unsatisfactory by the international community.However, there remains widespread discussion over the precise remit that the new figure would have, particularly in relation to any oversight they might have of Nato operations and Operation Enduring Freedom, the US's separate mission.
I don't know why Lord Ashdown (Heheh - I wonder how long before the troops nickname him "Lord Downer") is so negative. Afterall, it's not like Afghanistan can get any worse.
Oh. Wait:
Lord Ashdown added: "I believe losing in Afghanistan is worse than losing in Iraq. It will mean that Pakistan will fall and it will have serious implications internally for the security of our own countries and will instigate a wider Shiite [Shia], Sunni regional war on a grand scale."Some people refer to the First and Second World Wars as European civil wars and I think a similar regional civil war could be initiated by this [failure] to match this magnitude."
Nevermind.
