As the 2014 withdrawal date for American and British combat
troops creeps ever closer the rhetoric coming from leading politicians about
the great strides that have been made by Afghan forces has increased
significantly. In Britain the three major parties have formed a cosy consensus
with a steady drip of comments about how well Afghan troops have performed in
recent operations and the great leaps forward that have been made in training
the Afghan police and army.
Clearly some level of progress has been made but this isn't
saying much if you consider they were starting from the bottom. In a sense the
only way they could go was up but this still doesn't imply the Afghan state
will be able to guarantee security and prosperity once NATO forces leave. In
fact even with the current high levels of NATO support, the central government
under Hamid Karzai do not hold much influence outside the main urban areas.
Within the countryside, where the majority of the population
reside, it is the tribal leaders and councils who govern. In fact the local
populace show more loyalty to these tribal leaderships than they do to central
government. Even the police struggle to exert influence, preferring to do deals
with the local warlords rather than risking conflict by keeping law and order
as the central government wants.
This reluctance by the Afghan local branches of government
to properly exert its influence in the tribal regions is telling as it shows
the true strength and power they really have. The police and army units on the
frontline may lack in professionalism and in some cases even courage but
essentially it comes down to the fact that they don't feel they are genuinely
backed up by the government. This lack of confidence is extremely detrimental
to overall health of the state and is unlikely to be resolved any time before
2014.
Most likely the politicians in Washington and London
privately accept the futility of the NATO mission, some have even made
tentative steps to accept this publicly. Ed
Miliband's recent comments on a visit to Afghanistan show that even among
the political elite there are serious reservations as to whether the Afghan
government will last much beyond 2014. This comment was quickly followed by
Miliband declaring his strong support for the 2014 withdrawal plan, which shows
how purely political the exit date is and has no bearing on the conditions on
the ground.
Some would argue however that NATO should never have gotten
involved in nation building and its original mission of defeating Al-Qaeda was
completed in early 2002. The subsequent mission creep was born out of the
hubris of the time, a belief that America was going to re-shape the world for a
new century of dominance.
This was a deeply flawed belief and shows how little
politicians at the top had studied their history. It would only take a brief
period of research to see how many great powers had tried to tame Afghanistan's
various tribes and bring a central order to the country. All failed and
suffered great humiliating retreats which scarred the invading nation. One
example of this is being explored by Rory Stewart in a new documentary
series starting on the BBC.
Nevertheless even people who at the time did understand
Afghanistan's brutal history believed advances in technology and modern warfare
would allow NATO to be the exception to the rule. For a short period after the
initial fall of Kabul there did seem to be hope for a stable Afghanistan.
Billions of dollars of aid was poured into the country on regeneration, the
problem was much of this did not reach the people who really needed it. The
fact remained even though the Taliban had been defeated they had not simply
left, they remained living in the same communities they had for generations.
You cannot simply dismiss the Taliban as an evil group who
were reviled by every Afghani. They are
as much the people of Afghanistan as anyone else. They have fought invaders of
their land since the time of Alexander the Great and will continue to do so
long after the last vestiges of NATO have been blown back through the Khyber
pass.
The Taliban have not succeeded on their own however, they
are a wily bunch who have been willing to join forces with the most unlikely of
allies in order to achieve their goals. When the Soviet Union was attempting to
impose its will on the country they found a very willing ally in the United
States. When the Soviets left and the American support disappeared they found
Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist buddies more than willing to fund them
financially in return for safe haven.
Both these alliances were friendships of convenience as is
the current close relationship they have with elements in the Pakistani
intelligence and military communities. This relationship has grown out of the
immense amount of paranoia Pakistan directs towards India. Pakistan are willing
to accept a brutal, destructive group running Afghanistan just so long as they
are their brutal group and not India's.
This attitude by Pakistan shows no sign of abating and if
anything the ties are being strengthened the closer we get to the 2014
deadline. Pakistan recognise Hamid Karzai's government will be acutely
vulnerable once he is unable to call upon the power of NATO to maintain his
governments sphere of influence across the country.
Even if Pakistan could be persuaded that their main security
threat is no longer India they still have yet to admit that a relationship
exists. The irony is the true threat to the Pakistan state is from internal
terrorism being directed from the tribal areas of northern Pakistan and
southern Afghanistan. The Taliban may have severed most of their ties with
Al-Qaeda but there are still individuals within both groups who share
information and at times work together.
There are many more factors that could be listed which would
highlight the futility of NATO's mission but fundamentally Afghanistan is a
country of disparate tribes and peoples who have for centuries been ordered and
cajoled by foreign powers to come together as one unified nation state. The
British Empire failed and so did the Soviet Union, at some point NATO will face
up this but not before more blood and treasure is expended for a mission that since
early 2002 has been fundamentally flawed. If this analysis is correct then all
we have exerted for the last ten years has been for nothing and serious
questions need to be asked of the British and American governments.
Maybe if only half the amount of energy that has been exhausted
on constant inquiries on Iraq could be directed towards Afghanistan then maybe
we'll develop a proper understanding of this conflict which will hopefully act
as a warning for future generations who might be considering an intervention in
this most unforgiving land.
No comments:
Post a Comment