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It must have felt very uncomfortable for President Hamid Karzai to have his guest and "brother", Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, use a press conference in Kabul to attack Afghanistan's main donor and ally, the United States. "They themselves created terrorists and now they're saying that they are fighting terrorists," said Ahmadinejad, accusing the US of playing a "double game" in Afghanistan.

Ahmadinejad was in fact returning a compliment by the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, who only hours earlier had accused Tehran of "playing a double game" of offering friendship to the Afghan government while at the same time giving "low-level support" and money to the Taliban.

Karzai had always hoped to be the mediator between Iran and America, yet on this occasion,...