The big three who can help save Afghanistan
[SUB]Taliban guerrilla fighters hold their weapons at a secret base in eastern Afghanistan Photo: REUTERS[/SUB]
Exactly 11 years ago, with the wounds of 9/11 still fresh, the United States and Britain invaded Afghanistan. They arrived in anger, collected allies along the way, and grew in ambition. Today that anger has faded, those allies depleted, and their ambition exhausted. The campaign is already the longest in American history, far surpassing the Revolutionary and Vietnam wars.
Though combat forces are not due to depart for another two years, there is a palpable sense of counting down the clock. Last month, for instance, Nato stopped training Afghan Local Police and abandoned routine joint patrols below battalion level. Why? Because it is hard enough to face a decade-long trickle of casualties at the hands of a shadowy enemy with safe havens in Pakistan, but its particularly dispiriting to be shot by your own side.
So far this year, 51 Nato troops have been killed at the hands of their Afghan allies, in so-called green on blue attacks (compared to 35 last year). A quarter of Britains casualties and more than a tenth of Natos have come in this way over the past 10 months. The evaporation of trust in Afghan colleagues cuts at the heart of the war strategy, which was to turn the Afghan National Security Forces into a bulwark against the Taliban.
There is plenty of blame to go round, although the Afghan government must take the greatest share of responsibility. Some of its officials appear to have preferred to stuff their pockets rather than reform. Around $8 billion in cash was smuggled out of the country last year. When Western diplomats talk about Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, the language often resembles that surrounding earlier generations of feckless and ill-fated American clients, such as Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam or Chiang Kai-shek of the Chinese Nationalists. Diplomats whisper that Karzai is paranoid and impulsive. But even when he goes, as he must in 2014, the state he bequeaths to his successor will be a predatory and over-centralised mess.
Afghanistans army will cost around $8 billion annually, but where will this money come from? Sixty-nine per cent of Americans surveyed in March thought the United States should not be at war in Afghanistan at all. Another poll this month showed that 49 per cent wanted immediate withdrawal. European states are mired in their own economic troubles.
There is no easy solution, but Nato should not be afraid to ask for help.
In the Nineties, as the Taliban tore through Afghanistan, a trio of regional powers India, Iran and Russia backed the Talibans adversaries, the Northern Alliance. This is an admittedly curious set of countries. For years, Washington tried to dissuade India from getting involved for fear of provoking Pakistan. Iran, despite its antipathy to the Taliban, was alleged to have provided rockets and training to the insurgents. Nato ties with Russia are also strained, despite Barack Obamas attempted reset with Moscow. And yet, this trio ultimately has a fundamental interest in a stable Afghanistan and weakened Taliban.
India has a $2 billion aid programme in Afghanistan. Last year, Delhi and Kabul also signed a strategic partnership: Afghan officers are training in India and there are plans for the transfer of military equipment. Thats the sort of assistance that war-weary Britain should welcome.
Iran might seem a bizarre ally.
But in 2001, members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps the same outfit abetting the Syrian regimes repression worked with the CIA and American special forces against the Taliban. Remarkably, Iranian officials were even open to working under US command to train Afghans. As for Russia, it has 6,000 soldiers next door in Tajikistan, and played a key role in allowing Nato forces to fuel and arm themselves after Pakistan shut off supply routes last year. Moscow has no wish to see the resurgence of fundamentalist forces on its southern flank.
Working with these countries should not diminish our commitment to talking to the Taliban about a political settlement. We should also strive to give Afghan provinces more freedom from Kabuls interference. Meanwhile, it is important than the Afghan army does not collapse. If we dont co-operate with like-minded countries, they will opt to work with their favourite ethnic and factional militias, which would worsen Afghanistans own divisions.
The war in Afghanistan may not be lost, but it is certainly not being won. In 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev lamented that a million of our soldiers went through Afghanistan, and we will not be able to explain to our people why we did not complete it. We suffered such heavy losses! And what for? The Soviet Union lost nearly five times as many men as Nato, in a shorter period. Yet Gorbachevs sense of disillusion is recognisable today.
Privately, British officials are thinking about pulling out British forces much more quickly than planned. But shock therapy is not the answer. The stability of Afghanistan still matters, not just for the sake of Afghans but also because a renewed civil war would catalyse extremism in the region. Nato can no longer be choosy about its allies. Damage limitation is the order of the day.
The big three who can help save Afghanistan - Telegraph
