Afghanistan: Road map of chaos

COLUMN

print this

By Kari Huhta
     
      Just under eight years ago, 300 US soldiers toppled the violent government of the fanatically religious Taleban in Afghanistan. Now there are more than 65,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan and 40,000 from Europe and elsewhere, but the Taleban are operating again in most parts of the country.
      What in the world has happened in the meantime?
      The number of troops was reviewed during the weekend by Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the most respected security policy experts in the United States at a meeting of the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), where participants tried to make sense of the global situation.
      Brzezinski exaggerated a bit. The small ground forces of the United States did not topple the Taleban all by themselves. The Northern League and other groups opposed to the Taleban did the heavy lifting, getting support from the US Air Force and Special Forces.
      The United States went into Afghanistan to destroy the Taleban and the al-Qaeda terrorists who took shelter behind them after nearly 3,000 people were killed in the terror attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001.
     
In any case, a tremendous change has taken place in Afghanistan in eight years.
      There have been good changes, and they are continuing. Some of Afghanistan’s girls have been able to go to school, people have telephones and televisions, and there are no more public executions at the Kabul football stadium.
      However, the military situation has constantly deteriorated - at the same pace that the number of international forces has increased.
      As the debates grow more intense in countries taking part in crisis management operations in Afghanistan, and as numbers of victims grow both in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world, it is good to review a little of what has happened so far, and what is in store.
     
A small number of troops from the United States was enough at first, because they were welcome back then, Brzezinski said.
      At the age of 80 he no longer has an official position, but he was an early supporter of President Barack Obama, and one of those giving shape to the current foreign policy of the United States.
      When he says that the present situation in Afghanistan is “genuinely ominous”, he is not trying to undermine Obama.
      The initial enthusiasm did not disappear from Afghanistan right away. International aid organisations flooded into Kabul, and the NATO-led ISAF crisis management forces were set up alongside the US military operation. Finland decided to join ISAF at the end of 2001.
      In addition to more than 100,000 foreign soldiers, there are more than 60 official and unofficial international organisations, although with the erosion of the security situation, their activities have decreased.
     
There are several reasons given for the deterioration of the situation, and they are not mutually exclusive.
      The United States was seen as an aggressor in most of the Muslim world when it started a new war in Iraq in March 2003. According to one school of thought, George W. Bush, who was the President of the United States at the time, saved the terrorist organisation al-Qaeda by providing it with a new target for its wrath.
      Terror began to return to Afghanistan, and the ISAF forces were reinforced.
      According to Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, the security advisor to the Afghan President, the Taleban won new supporters by emphasising the growth specifically of foreign forces in the country.
      The Afghan government made the job of the Taleban easier by resorting to corruption. The blatant fraud in the August election was corruption in bloom.
      Those participating in the international operation began to worry about the deterioration of the situation, and about two years ago they began to merge different parts of military and civilian crisis management. The strategy was called "Comprehensive Approach", which did not work in practice.
     
Attitudes have also contributed to the erosion of the popularity of the military operation.
      Last week it was reported in news around the world that the kidnapped British journalist Stephen Farrell was rescued in an attack in which his Afghani assistant Sultan Mundai was killed.
      The way that the news was reported should have been that journalist Mundai was killed in an attack, in which Farell, a British citizen, was rescued.
      This is not how it was reported, and it was noticed in Afghanistan.
      Even with great wisdom, the results would not necessarily have been all that brilliant.
      The environment in Afghanistan feeds chaos. The best-known example of this has been the support that Pakistani military intelligence has given to the Taleban.
     
A new phase has opened up now in the planning of Afghan crisis management. It is somehow typical for the unfortunate history of Afghanistan that the new phase is spurred on by civilian deaths in air strikes that were called in by German forces. Previously Germany has been criticised for the limits placed on the use of force by its soldiers.
      Nothing is easy or fast in the new plans.
     
Countries taking part in ISAF are not pulling out of Afghanistan abruptly.
      One explanation is that a sudden withdrawal would be destructive for Afghanistan and dangerous for everyone else. According to another explanation, withdrawal would seriously hurt relations with the United States, and would ruin NATO. Both explanations are true.
      The operation will not turn into civilian crisis management any time soon. There is no military solution to the crisis in Afghanistan, but there is also no non-military solution, one British expert said at the IISS meeting.
     
In spite of a surge of criticism, the United States continues to consider sending troops to Afghanistan.
      Obama has three options, in which the increase in forces would be 15,000-45,000. They would be accompanied by a request for more forces from Finland as well.
      Commanders say that without an increase in forces, the security situation will not improve. If it does not improve, reconstruction will not succeed, there will not be enough time for a significant buildup, and it will not be possible to negotiate with the Taleban, who are feeling secure in a position of strength.
     
Political approval for more forces, if it comes at all, will be more difficult to achieve than at any time in the past eight years.
      The price is at least some kind of withdrawal plan for the military operation.
      If no conceivable solution is in store for Afghanistan’s great national and international crisis, the fault is in the thinking, because there will eventually be a solution to the crisis, in one way or another.
      No particularly happy ending is in sight.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 16.9.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish political leaders prepare for trouble in Afghanistan (31.8.2009)
  Häkämies: USA not yet asking Finland for more forces in Afghanistan (16.9.2009)
  Stubb on Afghanistan: “We are all on the same football team” (9.9.2009)

KARI HUHTA / Helsingin Sanomat
kari.huhta@hs.fi