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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Search Search: Sign InNew User? Sign Up News Home - Help Navigation Primary Navigation Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Secondary Navigation Australia China India Indonesia Japan Malaysia Philippines Thailand Vietnam Search Search: West lowers sights in Afghanistan: diplomats AFP - Sunday, March 15 PARIS (AFP) - - Recent weeks have seen a flurry of diplomatic activity on the Afghan front, but this should not disguise what Western envoys admit is a radical lowering of their ambitions for the war-torn land. Where once Washington and its allies boasted that Afghanistan would serve as a democratic model in a difficult region, officials now accept things are going badly and that NATO can't hope to win a clear military victory. US Vice President Joe Biden admitted this week that "we are not now winning the war" and suggested including more moderate factions within the Taliban-led insurgency in a broader peace deal. Canada and Britain also support this position, and this week French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner suggested that the West would have to accept it if what he called "moderate Taliban" made progress in upcoming elections. Diplomats now hope, at best, that a settlement will be reached that will appease the least dangerous of the rebel elements and allow development work. Meanwhile, Western leaders have been quietly distancing themselves from President Hamid Karzai's Afghan government, once seen as the best hope for peace, now accused of inefficiency and ties to drug lords. "We are lowering our ambitions," a senior French official admitted to AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The Americans are now looking for a way out, they no longer regard Afghanistan as strategic. "It'll take two to five years, but we're in a logic of disengagement." The campaign, which has seen the deployment of 70,000 NATO and US-led troops to fight a seemingly undaunted Taliban counter-offensive, has also revealed the shortcomings of the Atlantic alliance as a nation-building power. "It's not an issue that NATO can resolve alone," said Daniel Hamilton of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Washington's Johns Hopkins University. In an effort to reinforce the West's political muscle in support of NATO's military mission, the major players in the Alliance have appointed special envoys to oversee relations with Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States' Richard Holbrooke, Britain's Sherard Cowper-Coles, France's Pierre Lellouche and Germany's Bernd Mutzelburg all have the ears of their national leaders and they will work closely together. But the new team is coming in after more than seven long years of warfare and amid a mood of realism. With the insurgency gaining ground in Pakistan and showing no signs of slowing in Afghanistan, it's time for a new plan. "We need a clear view of means, a clear view of the end," said Nick Witney, a British expert from the European Council on Foreign Relations. This new approach, experts argue, must look to developing a process of political reconciliation alongside a more serious programme of economic and social development in the run up to August's Afghan presidential elections. According to Pierre Levy, director of a planning cell at the French foreign ministry, after September 11 and the fall of the Taliban, there was a will to make Afghanistan into a "great democratic state". Now, he said, much of the focus has shifted to other missions, such as that of eradicating the heroin poppies whose product generates the cash that funds the insurgency and corrupts Afghan officials. The lack of a clear master strategy has weakened the mission, Levy said. "The difficulty is in finding a political solution," he told delegates at a recent seminar in Paris, alluding to problems with Karzai's rule. "We need to train the police, which is the weakest link in the state, and speed the training of the army so that foreign troops can leave," an official in French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said. "We need a strategy to neutralise the drug networks that feed the insurgents and a government in Kabul that isn't too corrupt and that can govern outside Kabul," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity. So should the West look to replace Karzai? "The problem is, there's no one else," the official added. Email Story IM Story Printable View Blog This Recommend this article Average (0 votes) Sign in to recommend this article » Most Recommended Stories » Related Articles: Asia Pacific Sri Lanka troops kill another 32 rebels: militaryAFP - 39 minutes ago Bomb targets mayor of key Afghan cityAP - 56 minutes ago Tibet riot and its quelling remain suppressedAP - 1 hour 12 minutes ago SKorea voices regret over NKorea's border controlAP - 1 hour 22 minutes ago Pakistan puts ex-PM Sharif under house arrestAFP - 1 hour 29 minutes ago Enlarge Photo West lowers sights in Afghanistan: diplomats Most Popular – Asia Pacific Viewed For sale: nagging wife, very high maintenance World Bank warns of "very dangerous" year ahead Obama program helping US economy: Summers Bailed-out AIG plans bonuses worth millions: report Arrest warrant issued for Lindsay Lohan View Complete List » Search: Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! 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