A British perspective on the Afghanistan situation

I posted on Wednesday about Matthew Hoh and his views on Afghanistan. Tonight I read in the British newspaper, the Daily Mail, about that country's Centre for Policy Studies and its perspective on the conflict. The two reports are very similar, and draw the same conclusions. Here's an excerpt from the Daily Mail article.

All too many senior officers at the Ministry of Defence have looked like politicians in uniform, pretending that it is business as usual when in reality the situation is deteriorating.

If we are to achieve anything in Afghanistan, I believe we must end this kind of institutionalised deceit and face up to the truth that Nato's operation is on the brink of failure. So what can be done?

As I argue in a paper to be published by the Centre of Policy Studies, it is time for a more sophisticated approach that recognises the realities on the ground instead of obeying the dictates of spin.

From the start, the Nato strategy was based on a dangerous mix of misconceptions and self-delusions. There was [a] false belief that the ruling Taliban and Al Qaeda were inextricably linked by an ideological determination to overthrow western civilisation through acts of destruction like 9/11.

But this was a misunderstanding. Awful though it is, the Taliban was not a conspirator in 9/11 and never represented a threat to the West.

In fact, at one stage Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, even considered handing over Osama Bin Laden to the Saudi security forces but, after talks with his co-religionists, decided against.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban are still completely different animals. Al Qaeda is an internationalist, nihilist group bent on global jihad. The Taliban is essentially a national movement with limited aims - not a single, cohesive organisation but an army of disparate tribal leaders and farmers' sons who desire to defeat foreign invaders.

This makes nonsense of the argument that the defeat of the Taliban is essential for the security of the West. No one from the Taliban has ever thrown so much as a petrol bomb on western soil.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Defence proclaimed that 'the choice is between fighting insurgents in Afghanistan and fighting them on the streets of UK towns'. Such idiocy is an insult to our intelligence.

We are told that if we are not in Afghanistan, then the country will become an ungoverned space from which our enemies can attack us. But there are plenty of havens around the globe, such as the permissive tribal areas of Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen from which Al Qaeda and its franchises now operate.

Moreover, our presence in Afghanistan feeds Al Qaeda's insidious propaganda about western oppression of Muslims. Radical websites are full of imagery of the battle in Helmand and the rallying cry of martyrdom.

For Al Qaeda, Afghanistan is the best place in the world to generate video footage of jihadi attacks on 'infidel forces', which in turn helps global recruitment and fundraising.

That is why we need a completely different approach. What I advocate is not a complete withdrawal, but rather the reduction of our forces to the point where we have a strike capability against enemies who threaten our people.

We are now very good at electronic intelligence and hitting pinpoint targets from a long distance. We do not need vast armies of troops in the desert. We also should lower the flames of the insurgency through deals with tribal leaders, backed up by generous development programmes.

One of our spies in the region told me that a decent political officer, with the right back-up, could reduce violence in Helmand by 70 per cent. That sort of approach worked before, when the British Empire had dedicated political officers in the region, and it can work again.

Moreover, the misguided attempt to impose nationwide governance from Kabul should also be abandoned, as the tribal structures are far too strong for this kind of centralism. It would be far better to work with the grain of Afghan society, providing local health and education services, as well as support for local security arrangements.

This requires a lot fewer troops than the numbers envisaged by General McChrystal and the Ministry of Defence - which would free huge amounts of money to buy off tribes and reduce the insurgency to a manageable level.

What is certain is that we will lose if we go on as we are.

There's more at the link. Recommended reading.

For the benefit of those who may not have read my earlier articles about Afghanistan, I repeat: we've walked into a conflict that's many centuries - indeed, millennia! - old. Alexander the Great was the first 'civilized' leader to encounter it, and he didn't make much headway. Every 'great power' since then, including Britain and the Soviet Union, has failed in the same way. Unless we learn from their mistakes, rather than repeating them, we'll fail too.

President Obama is right to want to evaluate his options very thoroughly before making a decision as to what to do next . . . but not making a decision is the same as making one. Every day that passes right now strengthens our enemies in that part of the world, and weakens the US position. We need strong leadership, but at the moment it's conspicuous by its absence.

Peter