Barack Obama's Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy tweak overdue

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Friday's bloodshed in Pakistan is a horrible reminder of how overdue Barack Obama's retooled regional strategy seemed when it was announced this week.

By Adrian Michaels, Group Foreign Editor
Published: 8:54PM GMT 04 Dec 2009

The deaths also allow critics to lament once more that the American President's focus is on Afghanistan when the real problems have migrated over the border.

In fact Mr Obama and colleagues have explicitly tied together the strategies for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and both need patience and resolve over a long haul. Pakistan is not being neglected because 30,000 extra US troops and thousands more from the UK and other countries are heading to Afghanistan. Those extra troops still serve our best interests.

They are to be accompanied by much else besides – 250 helicopters for a start – and a welcome recalibration of goals for Afghanistan that has seen talk of equal opportunities, poppy eradication and democratic role models put in the shade by more pressing priorities.

The picture has unfortunately been muddied by the imposition of a deadline of July 2011 for the start of a withdrawal of US troops. That deadline, a gift from Mr Obama to important constituents at home, has now been hastily "clarified" by some of his top staff – the Defence Secretary, the Secretary of State and the US ambassador in London.

The troops may start to withdraw from 2011, but no serious reduction in troops is really anticipated much before 2013-15, as some of Britain's top military personnel have been saying.

The Taliban may view the withdrawal announcement as an invitation to sit tight and wait to take over in Afghanistan, but Western officials are adamant that our enemies will instead be contemplating gloomily the imminent arrival of so many more troops.

There are several crucial tasks ahead. Our politicians need far better to manage the expectations of the public and armed forces. It is obvious that governments have failed to communicate adequately that this war in Afghanistan is worth fighting in conjunction with efforts to overcome terrorists in Pakistan.

If we do not tackle Afghanistan, the extremists could use parts of the country as a base to plot atrocities all over the world. They could become yet stronger in Pakistan, inflame regional conflict with India, increase their presence in Somalia, or Yemen. And later they could move on, to Kenya or Nigeria. The Taliban are no "al-Qaeda-lite" – in parts they are as extreme and as ambitious.

For the international soldiers going to and already in Afghanistan, the planning, preparation and message needs to be mature and patient too. It is as if we were on the brink of war in 1939, already knowing that we were going to be in it until 1945. That being so, decisions have to be made within the context of looking out for our people over the long haul.

The biggest challenge seems to be the training and building of Afghan institutions. It is not so much pumping up the numbers in the army and police force. The problem is in finding domestic leaders to run these institutions, leaders to whom power is effectively devolved. The international community has demonstrated a shameful inability to organise the civilian side of Afghanistan life in the past few years, and that must change.

However successful our efforts to train Afghans to take care of themselves, we also need to recognise the need for an international coalition of armed forces in the region for decades, albeit at a vastly reduced level. The British are still, we should remember, providing advice at certain levels in India, and are only just contemplating a complete withdrawal from Germany. These are important topics for the UK Strategic Defence Review, the first for 12 years, which will be conducted in earnest after the next election.

Link : Barack Obama's Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy tweak overdue - Telegraph