What is happening to President Hamid Karzai's leadership of Afghanistan? The amount of land under opium in Afghanistan is more than under coca cultivation in Columbia, Bolivia and Peru combined. Afghan MP Malalai Joya writes in today's Independent that the government is as bad as the Taliban, with more women killing themselves in the country in 2007 than ever before. So why did President Karzai "veto" Paddy Ashdown as a "super envoy" to Afghanistan, and earlier in Davos say that the British presence in Helmand had made things worse? Is he angry that the international community has not delivered the reconstruction aid it promised, and, worried about his own re-election, trying to court votes with a more belligerent attitude to the West?

As I see it, the idea of one man in charge inAfghanistan is a non-starter. The country is a fiefdom of war lords who control areas. These areas are autonomous and neither need anything from Kabul or obey orders from Kabul. If there is anything going for free, they will hold their hands out. Otherwise they keep them on their friendly AK47. They are as likely to fight each other as incomers. Karzai got where he is by offering to organise a lot of freebies. He has not come good.