All week, CNN has focused on Afghanistan – that place we invaded after 911 in pursuit of Osama Bin Laden. Every year we receive another taped message from him. Every year we seem to dig in deeper and to throw more troops and material at the situation.
This Sunday, Fahreed Zakaria’s program GPS, also on CNN, spent its assigned hour on the subject of Afghanistan. As is his custom, Zakaria had guests from around the world with differing opinions. You can only appreciate Zakaria’s care in making his show truly international and diverse.
One of the most interesting panelist was Roy Stewart. His extensive background in and time spent in the area is well documented at http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/09/13/fareed.breifing.book.0913.pdf His background makes him infinitely well qualified to speak of the inner workings of the country.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n13/stew01_.html
Barack Obama, in a recent speech, set out our fears. The Afghan government is undermined by corruption and has difficulty delivering basic services to its people. The economy is undercut by a booming narcotics trade that encourages criminality and funds the insurgency . . . If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or allows al-Qaeda to go unchallenged – that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can . . . For the Afghan people, a return to Taliban rule would condemn their country to brutal governance, international isolation, a paralysed economy, and the denial of basic human rights to the Afghan people – especially women and girls. The return in force of al-Qaeda terrorists who would accompany the core Taliban leadership would cast Afghanistan under the shadow of perpetual violence.
But the author counters:
The best Afghan policy would be to reduce the number of foreign troops from the current level of 90,000 to far fewer – perhaps 20,000. In that case, two distinct objectives would remain for the international community: development and counter-terrorism. Neither would amount to the building of an Afghan state. If the West believed it essential to exclude al-Qaeda from Afghanistan, then they could do it with special forces. (They have done it successfully since 2001 and could continue indefinitely, though the result has only been to move bin Laden across the border.) At the same time the West should provide generous development assistance – not only to keep consent for the counter-terrorism operations, but as an end in itself.
This is NOT a recipe either for defeat or withdrawal. It is a proposal for another means of achieving our goals of security and tracking Bin Ladin while dropping the goal of state building – a goal unattainable in this region for centuries.
Posted on September 13, 2009