The Times article
5 November 2009
The clamour is growing for us to withdraw from Afghanistan. And the tragic loss of five British soldiers at the hands of one of those we are supposed to be fighting with is going to make that clamour louder.
There is now a real chance that we will lose this struggle in the bars and front rooms of Britain, before we lose it in the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan — particularly since we have a Government who have completely failed both to make a cogent case for this war or convince us that they have a strategy which is worthy of the sacrifices being made.
The blunt truth is that the events of yesterday have fractured a central plank of the only strategy we have. Before deciding what we should do next, it is worth considering what happens if we withdraw or fail in Afghanistan — apart, of course, from abandoning its people, an overwhelming majority of whom, despite all, still want us to be there and only 5 per cent of whom want to see the Taleban back.
First, failure or withdrawal would mean the certain fall of Pakistan. Pakistan could of course fall of its own accord. But it would also and inevitably do so as a result of failure in Afghanistan. So abandoning Afghanistan, doubles the chances of a Jihadi Government in Islamabad. Would this certainly result in Jihadi hands on a nuclear bomb? Maybe not. But do we want to take the risk?
Secondly, it would greatly increase the vulnerability of own country and our Western allies. We don’t have to look in the crystal ball for this — 9/11, 7/7, the Madrid bombs, the Bali ones, we know what Al Qaeda can do. If we leave or fail they would be able to do it again, not from a small corner of northern Pakistan where they are under pressure, but from the whole of southern Afghanistan, where they would be under none.
Thirdly, it would mean a deadly and probably mortal blow to NATO, which would lose the respect of the world and the confidence of Washington.
And. most important of all, it would be mortal blow to those of our Muslim friends who are fighting to defeat the agents of medievalism 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.
These are, to put it mildly, outcomes we should seek to avoid.
The problem is that we are not succeeding in this war; we are failing at an accelerating rate. If we cannot turn things round soon, the judgment we will have to make will turn, not on why it is important not to fail, but whether we can succeed at all.
Some things are positive. The Taleban are under increasing military pressure in Pakistan. And, in US General McChrystal and our own David Richards we have a Rolls Royce team who will, I believe, make life more difficult for them militarily too.
It is at the political, not the military level that we are failing. And here, as if we did not have enough problems, we now have a government in Kabul whose legitimacy has been fatally damaged and for whom respect has now reached a new low. The international community invested hugely in blood and treasure in the recent elections, but only the Taleban have taken a dividend from them.
For the democracy they oppose has been damaged, the Kabul Government they are in competition with has been weakened and so has the international community, who are their ultimate enemy.
Some say this can all be solved by some minor legerdemain and a major make-over for Karzai. That might have worked if we were making progress towards success in Afghanistan, rather than seeking to turn round an accelerating descent into failure.
It might even have worked if, in President Karzai, we were dealing with someone whose past record showed strengths in areas which now have to be addressed — building a government of national unity and tackling corruption. But these are Karzai’s weaknesses. A government of national unity is what he started off with when first elected, but it soon broke up under his leadership and because of his policies. To ask him to attack corruption is to ask him to attack the pillars upon which those who support his Government (and some say many of those in it), depend. I have no objection to trying to re-invent President Karzai. I just don’t think it will work.
This looks to me like a moment where what is required is not a course correction, but a game changer. And that has to come from Washington. With Peter Galbraith gone Richard Holbrooke seemingly stuck in the bowels of the US State Department it is now left to President Obama find the policies which will change the game.
One could be to deal with the problem of the legitimacy of Karzai, is to make him matter less, by shifting our emphasis from the national institutions in Afghanistan, to the local ones. We have been trying to make a Western style centralised Government work in a country whose traditions have been local and tribal for a thousand years.
There are local elections next year. Could we turn the current Karzai problem into an opportunity, by re-balancing the Government of Afghanistan away from Kabul and towards more local structures which run more with the grain of Afghanistan’s tribal traditions? Much of this can be done without constitutional change, just by shifting the emphasis of our support. But there could also be value in holding an Afghan supreme council or Loya Jirga to consider constitutional change and greater local autonomy — something which would be supported by nearly all the key tribal leaders of the country, especially in the south.
This would not be easy to achieve. But it would be easier than trying to convince the Afghans that the recent election debacle was in fact a success and continuing to prop up a government in which they have diminishing trust and confidence. It would also create the best climate for re-integrating the tribal-based Taleban where we can.
This would give us at last a form of government in the country which runs with, rather than against the grain of Afghan tradition. And it might, finally mean that we would no longer be sacrificing so many young men’s lives for a Government and a President in which there is so little confidence and support.
Our own government needs to make this case and make it powerfully. The British people are not squeamish and if they understand why we are fighting, they will back the cause. But being half-hearted is not an option in war. Afghanistan must become the nation’s number one priority or the people will withdraw their support.