Article for Independent 19 July 2007
The war in Afghanistan is one we have to fight and must win.
First, because failure or withdrawal would hugely increase the probability that Pakistan would fall. Would this certainly result in Jihadi hands on a nuclear bomb? Maybe not. But do we want to take the risk?
Secondly, because Al Qaeda would be able to expand from a small corner of northern Pakistan where they are under pressure, to operate from the whole of southern Afghanistan, where they would be under none. And we don’t need to look in the crystal ball to know what they would do with it. A brief study of the recent history books will do. 9/11, 7/7, the Madrid and Bali bombs and the seven transatlantic airliners which Al Qaeda inspired terrorists planned to bring down in a single day, should tell us clearly enough. If Al Qaeda is under less pressure, we in the West are under more danger – it’s as simple as that. Leaving Afghanistan or losing there would not, as some claim make us more safe. It would make us much less so.
Thirdly, leaving or losing in Afghanistan would mean a deadly and probably mortal blow to NATO. The alliance on which we depend for our defence is defeated by a collection of terrorists in the mountains, it would lose all credibility in the world and almost certainly the confidence of Washington at the same time.
And. perhaps most important of all, defeat or withdrawal from Afghanistan would be mortal blow to those of our Muslim friends who are fighting to defeat medievalism, darkness and ignorance in a struggle to win back their great religion for the true values of tolerance, understanding and moderation which are just as much apart of Islam’s teaching, as they are those of Christianity.
So winning in Afghanistan is really important – to the people of Afghanistan, to the stability of the world’s most instable region, to the fight to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to us.
The problem is, that we are not winning.
The reasons for this are many and go much deeper than the wrong equipment and lack of helicopters. Indeed our concentration on “giving our lads the right kit” is in danger of distracting us from the real issue, which is having enough “boots on the ground” to do the job and the right strategy to ensure that tactical military victories no longer get lost in strategic political defeat, because of division amongst the internationals and the lack of a properly integrated plan.
We in the west all think that Afghanistan is where we happen to be fighting. The British think its Helmand, the Canadians think it’s Kandahar, the Dutch think it’s Uruzgan, the Germans in Badakshan province and the US, until recently has thought it’s bombing from 15000. One of the cardinal rules of success in these kind of operations is unity of voice and action by the international interveners – and this rule we have, with willful determination, broken for eight years and ignore still. And far too many of our young men are paying with their lives because of this.
We love to criticize President Karzai, but the chief fault lies with us, not him. If we will not get our act together, how can we expect him to?
When I was asked if I would go to Afghanistan to try to put this right in 2007, I concluded that, if we were to have any chance of pulling things round, we would need a substantial change of policy, an ability to work to a single integrated country-wide plan and a lot of luck. And even then it would be touch and go. Since then, the dynamic has continued to move against us at an accelerating pace. Undeniable progress has been made in some areas, but this is more than outweighed by the decline in others. There is still clear and overwhelming support amongst Afghans for the international operation, but this is now beginning to drop and as we know from elsewhere (not least Northern Ireland), once you start losing public support, it is very difficult to win it back. The area of Taliban direct and indirect control is widening; insecurity in many areas is increasing; the coalition’s room for manoeuvre is narrowing; there is far too much squabbling amongst the allies.
We now have, I hope the ingredient to start turning this round. We have a Rolls Royce set of military commanders in Afghanistan, including our own General David Richards. And we have now, finally, adopted the right strategy – protecting the people, rather than chasing the enemy. And we will shortly have enough troops to begin to do the job properly. These are the ingredients which should enable us to begin to change the battlefield balance in our favour. But soldiers alone cannot win this war. If we win on the battlefield and lose on the political front, then we will continue to lose.
We have to stop wasting our soldiers’ tactical victories in strategic defeats at the political level. Far too many lives – Afghan and Western – have been wasted because the leaders of the international community in Afghanistan cannot or will not get their act together.
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