not seem to realise that Western backing for his government and rickety army is not limitless. The British, the Canadians and Dutch have agreed to rotate the command of international forces in the south for a year each and this autumn Major General Jacko Page of the UK 6th Division will take command. But in a year's time he will probably hand over to an American, because by then it's likely the Dutch and Canadians will have quit Afghanistan altogether.

"The problem with the allies' thinking about Afghanistan is that it's all tactics and no strategy," said a senior British general with a great deal of experience of Afghanistan in private recently. He might have added that all parties seem to have a different set of tactics, whether the individual Nato and international force members, Karzai, the local Taliban commanders, the tribal leaders, the Taliban leadership in Pakistan and the increasingly muddled political leadership in Pakistan itself.

The new government there wants to talk to Taliban leaders in the Federally Administered

Tribal Area, the recruiting ground for fighters heading to Afghanistan. Some Afghan leaders want to talk to the Taliban, and so do the British and the Dutch, ­ but they're not necessarily the same Taliban, and usually not the Taliban President Karzai wants to talk to.

Gen McKiernan needs a clear strategy for Afghanistan and one that doesn't depend on force and fighting alone. The operation has cost 503 US military lives and 96 British and has already lasted longer than the British were in the Second World War, and twice as long as the Americans were in it. However, there is unlikely to be an American strategic rethink before the removal vans have called at the White House.

As for the British, they cannot delay rethinking Afghanistan until the tenancy changes at Number Ten. If they do, there might not be any forces left to do the job at all.