Britain's top soldier says al-Qaeda cannot be beaten...

... is the headline of the lead story story in today's Sunday Telegraph.

The paper quotes General Sir David Richards as saying that defeating Islamist militancy was "unnecessary and would never be achieved".

There doesn't seem to be any question of General Richards having been misquoted by the paper. On the Andrew Marr Show this morning, he said the same thing about defeating the Taliban or al-Qaeda militarily: "You can't. We've all said this. David Petraeus has said it, I've said it."

Is he right? Who knows? But I bet his predecessor in, say, 1985, would have said much the same thing about Soviet communism.

Pakistan and the Taliban - again

This - is - becoming - repetitive.

But I will continue...

A White House report says Pakistan is not doing enough to confront the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Captain Renault must therefore make another appearance in this blog.

Cameron's travels (3)

A lot of hoo-haa (much of it misplaced in my opinion) has been generated by some of Cameron's remarks in Turkey and India.

His speech in Turkey generated considerable angst from various bloggers, including the down-to-earth Iain Dale, the excitable Melanie Philips (also here) and The Economist's reflective Bagehot.

I find it hard to get agitated one way or the other about Turkey. For as long as I can remember, it has been the "next big thing" that was set to arrive on the world stage, transforming relations between Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and between the West and the Islamic world. Ankara has never lived up to these expectations and the country always seems to punch below its weight. Why should it be any different now?

Turkey certainly filled a useful role during the Cold War on NATO's southern flank, and it continues to be a stabilising counterweight to other regional players (Iran, Syria, Russia). Perhaps we're best off leaving it as a semi-detached Western ally, rather than trying to give it more significance than it deserves.

Ankara may be useful as a stick with which to tease Paris and Berlin, but if anyone gets over-excited about the prospect of Turkey as Britain's "special friend", just throw a bucket of cold water over them by mentioning:
1. Northern Cyprus.
2. Kurds.
3. Armenians.

(A pause here for a tip of the hat to Gyppo Byard for a witty Turkey-based headline.)

As for the usual Pakistani splutterings after Cameron stated the obvious about Islamabad's support for terrorism, I am - once again - reminded of Captain Renault:

"I'm shocked, shocked..."

The London School of Economics has published research showing that Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency funds, protects, trains and directs the Afghan Taliban to a much greater extent than had been thought.

Pakistani officials have declared themselves shocked and outraged by such a suggestion.

One thinks of Captain Renault: