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Happy Face on the Grim War Realities




The first major conference of foreign governments on Afghan soil, held Tuesday, July 20, in Kabul, was intended to be a milestone on the road to achieving Western goals of withdrawing from a stable Afghanistan. But its message won't allay doubts over the exit strategy of the U.S. and its NATO partners. The half-day conference, attended by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, among others, featured familiar promises: Afghan security forces would eventually take over and allow NATO troops to go home; the Afghan government would do more to tackle corruption and deliver good governance. A new soft deadline was endorsed: President Karzai hopes his security forces will take charge of the country by 2014. The conference attendees also agreed that the proportion of foreign aid money channeled directly through the Afghan government (rather than through Western militaries and NGOs) would rise from 20% to 50%, although that proposal has raised corruption concerns among some Western diplomats.

But the increasingly perilous situation on the ground undercuts the conference's effort to convince skeptical Westerners that the war can be won in Afghanistan. Indeed, plans to begin the transfer of security control of some Afghan provinces from Western forces to Afghan troops by the end of this year were quietly dropped from Tuesday's talk out of concerns that local forces would not be ready. The Taliban know that NATO powers are under growing domestic political pressure to end what has already been America's longest war, and they see the Obama Administration's stated intention to begin drawing down U.S. troops next summer as a sign that NATO recognizes that it can't win the war. In response, NATO is hoping its soldiers can be replaced by Afghan security forces. "Maybe the insurgents think they can wait us out, but we will stay for as long as it takes to finish our job," said NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen in a commentary published Tuesday. That "job" was not defeating the Taliban but standing up an indigenous army to fight them. "Our training of Afghan soldiers and police is ahead of schedule," wrote Rasmussen, "and by next year there will be a 300,000-strong Afghan security force — and it can't be waited out."

Posted by worldissues Wednesday, July 21, 2010
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