What does Khurshid Kasuri, do when he is not amusing himself at the Wagah border? He tells the bitter truth.

Pakistan’s foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri, has said in private briefings to foreign ministers of some Nato member states that the Taliban are winning the war in Afghanistan and Nato is bound to fail. He has advised against sending more troops.

Hardly exemplary behaviour on the part of America’s “proud ally in the war on terror,” as well as the major non-Nato ally of the US in South Asia. Kasauri–on behalf of Musharaff, of course–seems to have finally dropped all pretensions of helping the US fight the Taliban. Bush is all but President in name, especially after the overwhelming victory of the Democrats recently. The rogue General doesn’t need him anymore. I recall a statement from a novel I recently read: petty people, mean-minded weaklings often play up their weakness so well that the strong realize they’ve been suckered too late in the day.

The Nato folks are not amused.

Western ministers have been stunned. “Kasuri is basically asking Nato to surrender and to negotiate with the Taliban,” said one Western official who met the minister recently.

We all knew this during the initial days of “the war on terror,” didn’t we? We also knew Bush was clueless but he proved it himself that his cluelessness was all-encompassing. Here is but another example, from the same news item:

Mr Karzai has long insisted that the Taliban sanctuaries and logistics bases are in Pakistan while Gen James Jones, the Supreme Commander of Nato, told the US Congress in September that the Taliban leadership is headquartered in the Pakistani city of Quetta.

How can Bush not know that Musharaff and Bin Laden and the rest are little less than bosom buddies? In a way, I guess this whole affair has served him right.

Cross-posted on INI Signal