Our aims in Afghanistan
The Darul Aman palace is a huge neo-classical pile with hundreds of rooms, set against the backdrop of the snowy mountains that surround Kabul. From a distance, it is an imposing sight. Unfortunately, as I discovered when I visited a few weeks ago, it is also a ruin. The palace was all but destroyed in the Afghan civil war of the 1990s.Darul Aman was built in the 1920s by Amanullah Khan, a reformist king who also promoted women’s rights and discouraged the wearing of the burqa. Ninety years later, the king is long dead, his palace is a wreck and the burqa is ubiquitous in Kabul.
So begins an article by Gideon Rachman at the FT. He thinks it is about time the aims of the war in Afghanistan are clarified. Just what is the West fighting for?
As Rachman concludes:-
we should also be realistic about what Nato can achieve. The very phrase “exit strategy” acknowledges that we are on our way out. Once western troops have left, it is the balance of forces within Afghan society that will decide whether girls’ schools remain open and women can walk the streets in freedom.
There are modernisers and brave individuals within Afghan society who will fight for women’s rights, long after Nato has left. But, as the fate of King Amanullah’s reforms suggests, there can be no guarantee that the modernisers will win.
He is right, once you start talking exit strategy! If NZ is to send SAS or other troops, just what are our aims? Adam suspects that whilst cloaked in rhetoric about ‘freeing the Afghans from Taleban tyranny’ our committment has always been about currying favour with the US. Further, this was Helen Clark’s reasoning Adam would contend and it will be John Key’s.
Let us hope we negotiate an excellent quid pro quo.
JC
The problem is that today we lack extraordinary politicians.
Bizarrely it may well be that in the future Bush the Younger might be seen as one by some. Unlike many politicans, especially American, he was prepared to expend blood and treasure. Further, he appeared, at least on occasion, to recognise that this was a long haul not a day trip.
Adam and Serum,
I could have added that specific “strategies” are a lot easier to pursue when you are a one party state and a neighbour rather than a democracy situated thousands of km away. The links between NZ and Afghanistan are that much more tenuous and relate more to concepts and trade than something more visceral..
Yet two world wars, the Cold War, 9/11, Madrid, Bali and Britain show that we are indeed linked to places and events far away.. and it takes a most extraordinary politician to convince his electors that there is a link and a need to expend blood and treasure to ensure future safety and prosperity.
An “exit strategy” is a signal that people not only want to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, but of the future. New Zealanders are particularly myopic about this.. our future doesn’t lie in NZ, but wherever we can eventually establish a trading post.
JC
Gideon Rachman thinks it is about time the aims of the war in Afghanistan are clarified and asks just what is the West fighting for. As one of the colluding and tangentially colliding nations in Afghanistan, Iran would see that as a statement of assurance that their strategies in Afghanistan have largely gone unnoticed except for those analysts who see Iran’s multilevel policies aimed at promoting dependence on Teheran.
The American Enterprise Institute published a 68-page report recently that sets out Iran’s actions in Afghanistan, including Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Iraq. Authored by Frederick Kagan, Kimberly Kagan and Danielle Pletka, the report, “Iranian Influence in the Levant, Iraq and Afghanistan,” (http://www.understandingwar.org/files/20080215_IranianInfluence.pdf) shows in copiously documented detail how Iran is strengthening its regional posture at the West’s expense not only through military actions but also through economic, cultural and infrastructure projects that build bilateral and multilateral relationships with states and terror groups based on dependency on Teheran.
This AEI report, although lengthy, is detailed and provides a factual basis for understanding the game. One wonders if Gideon Rachman is aware of this document. He has also taken limited cognisance of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Pakistan due to the Taliban’s current control over the territories bordering Afghanistan where Pakistan is no longer in a position to support NATO operations in Afghanistan. With its new territory, the Taliban now controls the lives of some 6.5 million Pakistanis. For their part, the civilians live in a state of constant terror. Since the Taliban took control of Swat in February, executions, public floggings and bombings of girls’ schools, restaurants, video and music stores have become routine occurrences.
And in the meantime, the advancing Taliban forces in Pakistan itself place Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and materials in unprecedented jeopardy with just 96 Km now separating the Taliban from the capital city of Islamabad. The Taliban are well positioned now to continue their march across the country. Indeed, the Taliban appear unstoppable.
JC
I agree, but Churchill son of empire did not look for exit strategies. He simply accepted what was often referred to as the ‘white man’s burden’ and recognised we were there for the long haul. If I remember correctly he was no fan of quitting India.
Many of the problems we face today are because of desires for closure and exit strategies coupled with endemic short termism
A week ago the Dutch pursued some pirates and released 20 hostages and held 7 pirates.. so far so good.. then they released the pirates because Nato had no policy for holding them.
There are tens of thousands of US troops in Korea, Europe and Japan.. what is the strategy to finally defeat these enemies?
Churchill said.. “You ask what is our policy? I will say, it is to wage war with all our might, with all the strength that God can give us, to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. You ask what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terror. Victory however long and hard the road may be. For without victory there is no survival.”
Sorry Winston, but that doesn’t begin to be a strategy in modern parlance because you almost certainly could have avoided a war with Germany for years.. and maybe for decades.
There doesn’t need to be a strategy for Afghanistan beyond the fact that its part of the wider conflict between neighboring nations and cultures and trading patterns. A presence in Afghanistan, like the conduct of the Cold War is simply a matter of waiting till “something happens”. Like troops in Korea, Japan and Germany the most elaborate strategies for them being there can’t hide the fact that Europe and the US think its a good idea against “something happening”.
A “strategy” for Iraq or Afghanistan is simply code for an exit policy from that wider war that might be called Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations”.. a clash that people don’t want to acknowledge with such a direct conflict.
The Western world has to stay engaged in Afghanistan because currently many nations’ interests collude and collide there.. remove the West from this equation and you create uncertainty, an intelligence vacuum and lose the power to influence events that may be to our detriment. But like the Cold War there’s no real way of formulating a strategy beyond Churchill’s words of “never surrender”.
JC