Brits: Afghanistan is Lost

Britain's senior military leader said Thursday that there is no military solution to the struggle against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

According to the Telegraph newspaper, Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Stirrup told Sky News: "There is a common misperception that the issues in Afghanistan, and indeed elsewhere around the world, can be dealt with by military means. That's a false perception. The military is a key, an essential element in dealing with those problems, but by and large these problems can only be resolved politically."

Stirrup's comments came after the U.N.'s former high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina said that NATO has "lost in Afghanistan."

"I believe losing in Afghanistan is worse than losing in Iraq," Lord Ashdown said, according to the Telegraph. "It will mean that Pakistan will fall and it will have serious implications internally for the security of our own countries and will instigate a wider Shiite, Sunni regional war on a grand scale."