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The west must accept there is no military solution

Jonathan Steele

The way forward in Afghanistan is to understand the south is lost and refocus efforts on Kabul and the north.

THOSE WHO wrote President Bush's Prague speech on democracy this week have clearly never visited Afghanistan. Otherwise they would not have had the President quoting a Soviet dissident who compared "a tyrannical state to a soldier who constantly points a gun at his enemy." The guns that most Afghans see pointed at them are held by Americans, and they are all too often fired. At least 135 unarmed civilians have been reported killed over the past two months by western troops, mainly U.S. special forces.

The deaths by ground fire and U.S. air strikes have become so frequent that last month the Upper House of Afghanistan's Parliament did something it has never done before. It called on the NATO-led forces to cease taking offensive action against the Taliban and asked the Afghan Government to talk to the insurgents, provided the Taliban accepts the new constitution. It also asked for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops.

Five years after western forces arrived in the country, the Upper House's concern reflects an impatience with them that is widespread in Kabul. Initially the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was considered too passive. The demand was for it to deploy out of Kabul to the non-Pashtun north and west, and arrest or disarm the warlords. Although these were anti-Taliban figures, they ran their areas like fiefdoms, neglecting development, and stealing revenues.

After a two-year delay the ISAF did move out, and now runs so-called provincial reconstruction teams in most provinces. It still leaves the warlords alone, since confronting them is considered the Afghan government's job.

In Kabul, some western analysts with long experience of Afghanistan are in despair. They argue that the ISAF should recognise the trap it is in. Western governments and their electorates will never provide enough troops to secure the south, but the reckless use of airpower to make up for the shortage of ground troops only loses more hearts and minds. The downward spiral of anger and alienation accelerates.

The only honest solution is to accept that the south is a lost cause as far as western military action is concerned. The ISAF should refocus its effort and the available foreign aid money on Kabul and the north. Turn them into an example of how development and modernisation can be done gradually and sensitively and with a real long-term commitment, rather than spending millions on advice on "good governance" from overpaid consultants on short-term contracts. There is no danger that the Pashtun-based Taliban will capture Kabul and the north again. The ISAF need not announce a pullout, but it should prepare the ground by redeploying its forces to garrisons in Kandahar and the provincial capitals in the south, and quietly abandoning its isolated outposts and the futile in-and-out patrolling of the hinterland.

A key precondition for a new approach in Afghanistan has to be an end to the west's "war on terror" rhetoric and its latest incarnation, Mr. Bush's Prague talk of "freedom versus extremism." Promising "victory" in Afghanistan only risks the perception of "defeat" when the reality eventually dawns that there is no military solution. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2007

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