Incorrect reasoning

THE Western allies of the War on Terror are insisting on a strategy that relies on the failed American prescriptions that have been fed to them by their local allies, even in Afghanistan. Yet even those allies have felt obliged, by the survival instinct if nothing else, to blurt out some of the truth about the US failure in Afghanistan. This is the context within which it is possible to make sense of President Hamid Karzai's tirades, in the latest of which he has blamed the international community for the resurgence of the Taliban, though he ascribed this to their ignoring of Afghan warnings since 2003 of the 'sanctuaries of terrorists', which is his way of blaming Pakistan for the failure in governance on his part. But this also by implication makes Mr Karzai's government a failure for failing to extend its writ beyond the capital. Mr Karzai does not look at his own failures, but prefers to blame Pakistan, which is easier.