Afghanistan

Debate between Adam Holloway and Liam Fox

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

Strategic air cover for Afghanistan is some way down the line, but it will be required when there is a stable state able to maintain its own security. That, of course, is some way in the future, but given that Afghanistan’s capacity will be small, as the hon. Lady said—at the moment it is well behind where it needs to be—how arrangements for that process are put in place will be a matter for the whole of the international community, not just the United Kingdom.

[Mr Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

There are many Afghans outside the ruling clique who believe not only that the exit strategy will not work in the long term, but that it is fatally flawed and in fact cannot work. General Petraeus’s strategy has been described as “Fight, then talk”. Does the Secretary of State think that we ought to be fighting and talking, and that this should include talking to all modes of the insurgency?

[Dr Fox]

History teaches us that in any insurgency or conflict, we inevitably move from a military phase, taking on the violence of insurgency, into a phase where there is both military contact and diplomatic activity, and hopefully from there into a phase of diplomatic resolution on the political stage. I think that we are at a point where, as I said earlier, we will increasingly be looking not simply at the military position or the security situation on the ground, but at the political level. What has come across in the House this afternoon appears to be an increasing view on both sides that the political arena will be increasingly important. That is in no way to diminish the importance of the security environment within which those political talks will take place, but without the success of the political element the security gains will not provide a stable and secure Afghanistan.