You cannot buy an Afghan, the old joke says, because they are so fiercely independent. But you can rent one.

Times move on. Now it is the Afghan president who is trying to find a UN representative he can effectively control.

President Hamid Karzai’s objections to Lord Ashdown taking over as UN supremo in the country are part of an old-fashioned power-struggle that would be instantly recognisable to any village khan - or UN bureaucrat.

With the Taleban resurgent and opium production on the rise, Nato powers are seeking greater control - they call it coordination - of the political and economic aspects of the military campaign.

David Satterfield, America’s Coordinator for Iraq, told The Times this week that Iraq may turn out to be America’s “good war” while Afghanistan goes “bad”.

The Bush Administration has pledged to deploy 3,200 more Marines, complaining that its Nato partners lack counter-insurgency expertise.

In return, the United States hopes other Nato nations, such as Britain and Canada, play a greater role in economic and political reconstruction, from building roads to bolstering local government.

“The struggle in Afghanistan involves warfare, but it is not primarily a military struggle. It is primarily political and economic,” Barnett Rubin, a veteran Afghan expert at New York University, told Congress this week.

As the stakes rise, Nato governments hope to enlist the UN more closely in this “hearts and minds” campaign against the Taleban.

The Western powers have been pushing Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, to name a high-profile figure to replace the departing UN special representative in Kabul. Lord Ashdown, who has already served as international viceroy in Bosnia, fit the bill. But his extensive experience in the role, which allowed him to sack local officials and rescind laws, taught him to demand far-reaching powers that threatened Mr Karzai’s control.

The president had already indicated his impatience with the British role in his country in his ill-tempered outburst on Thursday in which he accused British forces of aggravating the security situation. Both his verbal attack and diplomatic sabotage of Lord Ashdown are intended to weaken the challenge posed by Nato to his grip on power.

Nato nations appeared ready to water down Lord Ashdown’s mandate, but diplomats say the former Royal Marine held firm.

The likely outcome is a UN compromise that puts an underwhelming figure in the job who will play ball - or the Afghan game of “buzkashi” - with President Karzai as the chaos in southern Afghanistan spreads.

Perhaps the best that can now be hoped for is a skilful diplomat who can navigate the twisting valleys of Afghan politics and does not come with the colonial baggage of a Briton like Lord Ashdown, the New Delhi-born son of an Indian Army captain.

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