The French investigative weekly, Le Canard enchaîné, uncovered a secret diplomatic message last week that said the current U.S. strategy in Afghanistan will be unsuccessful.

“The American strategy is destined to fail,” said Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, Britain’s ambassador to Afghanistan. “The coalition presence — particularly the military presence — is part of the problem, not the solution.”

The British envoy stated that the strategy there isn’t working and it would be a “positive thing” if Kabul was governed by “an acceptable dictator” after Western forces left, according to The Guardian.

Cowper-Coles went on to describe how the coalition presence is worsening the situation and that NATO reinforcements would make the situation worse, marking the coalition forces more clearly as the occupying force.

The United Kingdom’s Foreign Office said the views were “not in any way an accurate representation of the British government’s approach.”

Soon after the confidential dispatch came out, the top United Kingdom military officer in Afghanistan painted an equally dire picture.

“We’re not going to win this war,” Brig. Mark Carleton-Smith said in an interview with the Sunday Times of London. “We want to change the nature of the debate from one where disputes are settled through the barrel of the gun to one where it is done through negotiations.”

Carleton-Smith added that the thought of negotiations with the Taliban shouldn’t make people “uncomfortable” and that the goal should be to reduce violence to a “manageable level.”

Top French military officer Gen. Jean-Louis Georgelin agreed with Carleton-Smith “that one cannot win this war militarily, that there is no military solution to the Afghan crisis,” adding, “I totally share this feeling.”

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called the British officials’ comments “defeatist” and warned not “to underestimate the opportunities to be successful in the long run.”

Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, told reporters that the situation will likely worsen next year and won’t improve until political and economic issues are addressed, McClatchy reported late last week.

Veteran journalist Jason Burke and numerous other sources have reported that Saudi-backed talks took place in September between the Taliban and the Western-backed Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai.

While sources close to the Taliban and the government denied the allegations to the Christian Science Monitor, the United Kingdom Telegraph reported Saturday that Karzai offered Taliban officials a role in governing the country if certain demands are met.

British military commanders support talks with the Taliban as a means to end the war, the Telegraph reported.

A preliminary U.S. National Intelligence Estimate report concluded that the situation in Afghanistan is headed on a “downward spiral” and doubted the government’s ability to defeat the Taliban, according to the New York Times.

The full report, a consensus of the nation’s intelligence agencies is to be completed after the elections.

Reach reporter Aditya Ganapathiraju at news@dailyuw.com.