Talking to terrorists is not a policy with which this newspaper is normally associated. But that does not mean to say that the argument put forward by David Miliband yesterday should be dismissed out of hand. During his meeting with Hillary Clinton, his American opposite number, the Foreign Secretary suggested that a dialogue should be established with the leaders of the Taliban in Afghanistan, to persuade them to lay down their arms.
One of this Government's fundamental failings during the three years that British forces have been deployed in Helmand province has been its inability to articulate a clear mission statement about our ultimate objectives. Time and again, we are told that the military has inflicted a decisive defeat upon the Taliban, but precious little is said about the bigger picture, in terms of explaining what these hard-won victories are supposed to mean. Gordon Brown was at it again this week, boasting about the British military's latest success in "Operation Panther's Claw", in which the Taliban suffered yet another heavy defeat – albeit at the cost of significant British casualties. But what's the point of winning all these battles if we continue to lose the war?
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