Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Kabul and a former army commander in Afghanistan, set the cat among the Washington pigeons this week when he warned against any further increase of American forces, essentially because Hamid Karzai is not a reliable partner.

These leaked (un)diplomatic cables give a picture of an Afghanistan strategy at sixes and sevens. They nevertheless go to the heart of the agonising debate inside the Obama administration on what sensibly to do about what is beginning to look like a quagmire.