Next I put a call through to Burns, who said he would speak to Condi Rice about my decision. Later that day he got back to me saying that the Secretary had one question for me. If she forced Karzai to take me, could I turn the relationship round? I replied that I didn’t think so. Karzai was so mercurial that, though it might be possible to turn things round for a day or two, no one could know what would happen after that. And anyway, even if she persuaded him, it would be a Pyrrhic victory, since I would clearly be going to Kabul against the wishes of the Afghan President and Government, and perhaps even, after what had happened, a large section of Afghanistan’s Pashtun population too. This would make what was already going to be a very, very difficult job simply impossible. I concluded that, under the circumstances, I was sure I had no alternative but to withdraw my name, which I would do publicly the following day. Shortly afterwards Condi Rice called, thanked me and expressed her concern about what had happened and the implications for Afghanistan.
Why did President Karzai change his mind so suddenly? Here I have to stray into the realms of speculation.
Some have told me that they believed they could detect the hand of Zalmay (‘Zal’) Khalilzad, the US Ambassador at the UN in New York behind this. Khalilzad, himself an Afghan by origin, is said to have designs on the Afghan Presidency and to be planning to put his name forward for the 2009 Presidential elections. According to this version of events, he strongly advised Karzai to say no to the US proposition that I should do this job, knowing that this would weaken Karzai in American eyes and thus give Khalilzad a clearer run at the Presidency, perhaps even with the support of Washington. Though this is certainly the kind of convoluted conspiracy theory that would be satisfyingly appealing to most in Afghanistan, where conspiracy theorising is the national sport, it has been firmly denied by Khalilzad himself.
In my view, the reasons for Karzai’s sudden U-turn are much more likely to be connected with the internal politics of Afghanistan and the forthcoming Presidential elections. Among President Karzai’s own people, the Pashtuns, a little bashing of the British, their ancient colonial enemy, always goes down well. More importantly, President Karzai, who has lost a lot of support amongst the other, non-Pashtun, elements in Afghanistan, has consequently become increasingly dependent on Pashtun votes for his re-election as President, and hence on those who can mobilise votes amongst the Pashtun tribes. To these elements of Afghan society the prospect of the international community speaking with a united voice, especially if that meant mounting a determined attack on corruption, as we had done in Bosnia, may not have been welcome.
Whatever the reasons for all this, my family were absolutely delighted.
Jane immediately declared Hamid Karzai her world number one favourite person after Nelson Mandela and gave his picture pride of place on the door of the kitchen fridge – to which she says a ritual thank you every morning. For my part I was glad and relieved too, but with reservations. At the start, I had really not wanted to do this, so now I was, overall, happy I could return to pretending to be retired. But, I confess, as we prepared our plans a bit of me had been drawn into the new enterprise ahead. At least initially, therefore, part of me was disappointed not to be back in the game, working on problems once again and working, once again, with people half my age. But all that is in the past now, and we have got back to the life we were so enjoying before that fateful October-night phone call in Australia.
I remain involved with a couple of commercial enterprises, which I love. I am able, when called upon, to help the Lib Dems and support their gifted new Leader, Nick Clegg. I can also see my family and my grandchildren more regularly than I used to. I am writing again and listening to music I haven’t been able to listen to for ages. And, of course, there is our glorious Somerset cottage garden and my friends in the little community of Norton Sub Hamdon, whose name I carry as my title in the House of Lords.
I have always considered that one of the key factors that determine one’s quality of life is the quality of your friends, and especially your neighbours. Here Jane and I have been extraordinarily lucky, too. For we have, living either side of us, two neighbours who have become close friends and the constant companions of nearly all the Somerset bit of our lives. Steph and John Bailey and Sally and Steve Radley made the long journey to see us in Bosnia (twice), have come on holiday with us in France, are regular companions in sampling the wares of the local Somerset hostelries and have been outstanding and generous neighbours, whose company I am now at last able to enjoy to the full.
As that NATO interrogator said, all those years ago in my SBS days, being idle is the worst of all punishments for me. So, once again, I am fortunate that, what with one thing and another, I find myself busy enough to keep out of both mischief and boredom. I still find myself working hours almost as long as they used to be and spending almost as much time on aircraft and in trains as I always did. But these days, Jane is mostly able to come with me.
And that, at our time of life, is just the way it should be.
* London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007.
* He became PM a week later, on 27 June.
* The quotations of conversations in this chapter are taken from my diary.
* Bernard Kouchner, former UN Special Representative in Kosovo and, at the time of my meeting with Brown, though a member of the French Socialist party, Foreign Minister in Nicholas Sarkozy’s government. (See also page 334)
* The Downing Street exchange is one of the least known but most useful bits of Government. It keeps a record of the contact details and regular movements of all key Government and senior political personnel and prides itself on finding find them anywhere in the world at any time of day or night.
POSTSCRIPT
The Galloping Horse
LOOKING BACK, I see that I have led an exceptionally fortunate and varied life – a life of the sort which is probably no longer available to younger generations in Britain. I have taken a lot of risks, some of them very foolish. But in the end they seemed to have worked out as well as, or better than, I had any right to expect.
And now I have all I need or could wish for, and am very content.
Except for one thing. I cannot work out where it all went, this feast that has been laid before me and which I have devoured with such voracious appetite.
I cannot somehow find the way to connect the eighteen-year-old of that sunny May morning in 1959, standing by the side of the Exe estuary on the little station halt at the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines, and the person I seem to have become now. In one sense or another, all lives are journeys. For me that scene of fifty years ago, which is still very fresh in my mind, marks the beginning of an odyssey which has led through many different adventures to the place in which I now find myself. But, looking back, I have almost no idea how I got from there to here. For mine has not been, in any sense, a planned life. It has been a haphazard one: its course may from time to time have been altered by my will, but its overall shape appears to me to owe more to providence than intention. I seem to have lived like one of those seventeenth-century merchant adventurers who sailed out of the great port of Bristol to search the seven seas for opportunity and adventure. And now, thanks to good fortune, favourable winds and excellent friends, I am returning with an ample store of treasure and a huge cargo of memories.
Our greatest treasure, of course, is our family. Perhaps things are changing now for modern politicians, and, if so, that is a very good thing – politics and family life have not easily mixed in the past, as the bleak record of breakdown, drug problems and worse amongst the children of politicians shows. But our children have ended up, not just as fine human beings to be proud of, but also as our greatest friends. This is almost all down to their strengths and their mother’s skills. For I was not, I fear, a very good father in the conventional sense, at least until I realised that I could not control their lives or live them for them. And now my son, a much respected junior-school teacher who lives nearby, has a daughte
r, Annie Rose, whose regular visits to us are one of the most eagerly anticipated events of our life. We see our daughter, who also teaches (but in France), and her two children, Matthias and Lois, more rarely, which is painful. But this does not diminish the debt I feel I owe to fortune for them, or the joy of being with them when we can.
Ask me what was the pinnacle of it all, and I would not hesitate with the answer: 9 June 1983, the night we won Yeovil at the general election. For there is no privilege greater than representing the community you live in, and love, in Parliament. The only one that perhaps comes close, is to stand before your fellow citizens at election time as one amongst three Party Leaders who have the chance to put before our countrymen our visions for their future. And I have been fortunate enough to do that, too. But I also cannot now imagine my life without the little, beautiful country of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its remarkable people being a part of it
But how did it all happen? Where has it all gone?
Lao Tse said that a man’s life passes before him with the speed of a galloping horse. And, content though I am, so it sadly seems.
Appendix
Afghanistan appreciation, 15 December 2007
1. We do not have enough troops, aid or international will to make Afghanistan much different from what it has been for the last 1,000 years – a society built around the gun, drugs and tribalism. And even if we had all of these in sufficient quantities, we would not have them for sufficient time – around 25 years or so – to make the aim of fundamentally altering the nature of Afghanistan achievable.
2. In 5–10 years time it seems very probable that troop numbers and aid in Afghanistan will, at best, be half what they are now. The international community will have other priorities, and Afghanistan will no longer be at the top of its agenda.
3. So our task now is to shape our actions towards the kind of Afghanistan which can be managed on these diminished resources.
4. This will be an Afghanistan in which:
• Guns will, especially in the south, probably still be a greater factor in the exercise of power than the ballot box.
• There will still be tension, especially in the south, between governance through tribal democracy and government through formal Western-style democratic structures, with the former being more influential than the latter, unless we can find a way to synergise the two
• War lords, especially in the south, will still be a feature of Afghan governance and government.
• Drugs, especially in the south, will still be a feature of Afghan life and the Afghan economy.
• Corruption will still be deeply embedded in government.
• The Taliban will still exist as an armed force, especially in the south. Because here the insurgency is actually not about Al Qaeda but about deeply conservative Islamic Pashtun nationalism, with most locals preferring the Taliban, even if they do nasty things to them, to foreign troops, even if they do nice things for them.
5. We may, if we are really successful, be able to diminish the effects of the above, but we will not be able to eradicate them.
6. Progress in diminishing the insurgency will require a two-pronged strategy. On the military side we will need to be ruthless about attacking their structures, even at the risk of collateral damage. They need to know that we will do whatever is necessary, and for however long, to defeat them. On the political side we will need to be equally focused on providing a better alternative that can deliver improvements in Afghan lives. Very bad cop to all insurgents, very good cop to all those who aren’t, is our motto.
7. So, politically, governance is the key. But it has to be governance with the grain of Afghan traditions and in tune with what is achievable. Under-promising and over-delivering is a shining virtue; vice versa, a mortal sin. So we have to abandon the notion that we can make Afghanistan into a well-governed state, with gender-aware citizens and European-standard human rights. It raises expectations we cannot fulfil and wastes resources better deployed elsewhere. A better-governed state is the limit of the achievable.
8. On the military side we also need to understand that we probably cannot defeat the Taliban – probably only the Afghan people can do this. And at present, especially in the south, they do not seem ready to do so. Nor can we force them. They change their mind on this in their own time, not ours. The best we can do is give them the space, help where we can and hope for the best.
9. To expect to do more than 5, 7 and 8 above, is to set ourselves up for defeat.
10. These truths will be deeply shocking to the politicians and their publics who initiated and still, mostly, support this operation. But that does not make them less true.
11. So one of our tasks is, gently, to lower expectations in the Western world and bring our ambitions back into the range of the achievable. This will certainly be difficult and may well make those who attempt it, unpopular.
12. There is one thing we have achieved, however, and, with skill and a ruthless prioritisation of resources, ought to be able to continue to achieve even with diminished resources. That is denying the Islamic jihadists the use of Afghanistan for the kind of activities they conducted there prior to 9/11. Islamic jihadist fighters may be taking part in the insurgency in Afghanistan, but they are no longer using the country for bases, recruitment and training. These activities are now taking place over the border in Pakistan.
13. So the realistic aim in Afghanistan, with current resources, is not victory, but containment. Our success will be measured not in making things different but making them better; not in final defeat of the jihadists, but in preventing them from using Afghanistan as a space for their activity. These two aims will be difficult enough to achieve; but they are at least achievable.
Index
(Unattributed subheadings refer to Paddy Ashdown.)
Aaranson, Sir Michael, 1
Abbeville, 1
Abbey Theatre, 1
Abergavenny, 1
Aden, 1, 2
Adriatic Sea, 1
Afghanistan, 1 appreciation, 1
articles written, 1
IEDs, 1
mentioned, 1
a place to get bogged down in, 1
‘Ram’ Seeger, 1
Against Goliath: David Steel’s Story (David Steel), 1
Ah Moy, 1
Aida (Giuseppe Verdi), 1
Akbar Khan, 1
Al Fayed, Mohamed, 1
Al Qaeda, 1
Albania, 1, 2, 3
Albigensians, 1
Alexandria, 1
Alps, 1
Alrewas, Staffordshire, 1
Alton, David, 1
Ambush, HMS, 1
ambushes, 1
Amphibious Training Unit Royal Marines (ATURM), 1
Anchorite, HMS, 1
Andov, Stojan, 1
Andrew, HMS, 1
Andrews, Brian, 1
Andrews, Sir James, 1
Andrews, Thomas, 1
Andrews family, 1
Andrić, Ivo, 1
Annan, Kofi, 1
Any Questions, 1, 2
Apenzell, 1
Arafat, Yasser, 1
‘Archie’, 1
Ardoyne, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
argument, 1
Arkan, 1
Armstead, Richard, 1
Army and Navy Club, 1
Arno, River, 1
Arran, Isle of, 1
Ascent of F6, The (W. H. Auden), 1
Ashdown, Charlotte, née Durham (great grandmother), 1
Ashdown, Jane (wife) Belfast, strain of, 1 coping magnificently, 1
doing the driving, 1
favourite people, 1
firearms tuition, 1
first meets, 1
giving birth, 1, 2
Hong Kong, 1, 2
John Murphy, 1
London, 1
maintains correspondence, 1
parental and other support for marriage, 1
proposes to, 1
Singapore, 1, 2
<
br /> training involvement, 1
Tricia Howard, 1
Ashdown, Jeremy John Durham (Paddy) Bedford School, 1, 2 Belfast, 1, 2
birth, 1
books written Beyond Westminster, 1, 2
Making Change Our Ally, 1
Swords and Ploughshares: Bringing Peace to the 21st Century, 1
Bosnia, 1, 2, 3, 4
see also Sarajevo Office of the High Representative, 1, 2
reconstruction, 1
Srebenica, 1
China, 1
class system, dislike of, 1
Comber Produce Company, 1
computers, 1
‘Durham’ name, 1
employment Dorset County Council, 1, 2
Morlands Sheepskin Coats, 1, 2
Normalair Garrett, 1
odd jobs, 1
United Nations, 1, 2, 3, 4
family ancestors, 1
death of father, 1
death of mother, 1
deaths of siblings, 1
father returns home, 1
father’s final illness, 1
first meets Jane, 1
love for parents, 1
marriage, 1
parents emigrate, 1
finance, down to last £150, 1
first car, 1
fishing, 1, 2
girls, 1, 2, 3
health, 1, 2, 3
Hong Kong, 1, 2
Iraq, 1
knowing your comrades, 1
Kosovo, 1, 2
languages, ability to speak French, 1, 2
German, 1
Hindi, 1
Malay, 1
‘Mandarin Chinese’, 1, 2, 3
Serbo-Croat, 1
Lillipit Cottage, 1, 2, 3
A Fortunate Life Page 51