BRITAIN: The British government's foreign policy came under Tory criticism yesterday as the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, held talks with the leader of Afghanistan's interim administration, Mr Hamid Karzai.
In his first major speech on foreign policy, the Conservative leader, Mr Iain Duncan Smith, accused the prime minister of adopting a "utopian" attitude towards foreign policy, highlighting in particular Mr Blair's comments about "reordering the world around us" in the days after September 11th.
Addressing an audience at the Royal Institute for International Affairs, Mr Duncan Smith said: "Attempts to create new world orders are doomed because they first have to entail the creation of new world citizens."
Although he stressed Conservatives supported the international campaign against terrorism - describing the campaign as "our war" in Britain just as it was a US campaign - Mr Duncan Smith dismissed Mr Blair's "unrealistic and deluded designer diplomacy" and "media grandstanding" on the international stage.
"Countries which seek to pursue ambitious foreign policies, which neither advance their interests nor match their resources, are putting their standing and possibly their security at risk," Mr Duncan Smith said. "And there is worse. An unfocused approach to foreign policy leads to, and is often devised in pursuit of, media grandstanding."
The Labour Party chairman, Mr Charles Clarke, denounced Mr Duncan Smith's "little England splendid isolationism", insisting his vision was "out of time" and "misjudged", particularly when Mr Karzai was also speaking in London about increased international co-operation.
At their talks in Downing Street, during which Mr Karzai became the second leader after former US president, Mr Bill Clinton, to address a meeting of the British cabinet, Mr Blair pledged continued support for Afghanistan but stopped short of agreeing to Mr Karzai's request for additional troops.
Repeating a request he made to the UN Security Council earlier this week for the international peacekeeping force to extend its remit outside Kabul where Taliban factions are still feuding, Mr Karzai told Mr Blair Afghanistan would not have been freed from "the occupation of terrorism" without British troops.
Britain will shortly hand over leadership of the force, probably to Turkey, and has offered assistance in training an Afghanistan police force. However, Britain is not keen on committing more than the publicly stated 1,500 troops to the international peacekeeping force and Mr Blair told Mr Karzai: "Our leadership is there but it is for a limited period for very obvious reasons."
AFP reports from Gardez:
Fierce faction fighting raged between rival warlords in Afghanistan yesterday. Hundreds of fighters loyal to a new provincial governor hand-picked by Mr Karzai were reportedly routed after a bloody struggle for control of the eastern Paktia province, with many killed, local leaders said.
The fighting, which flared up on Wednesday, appeared to be the most serious outbreak of violence between rival tribal leaders in Afghanistan since the interim government was put in place.