Afghanistan: NATO fails a test

The alliance has missed a chance to help both Afghanistan and itself

“THIS time, we will not walk away from you.” Thus Tony Blair in November, 2001, at the end of the short and muscular campaign that drove the barbarous Taliban from power. “You, the people, must agree your own government, and your own future, but we, the coalition, must give you the help and support that you need as you seek to rebuild your troubled country, and that support will be forthcoming.”

To many people, that promise now seems to lie broken. The Afghans themselves have valiantly done their bit: they established an interim government, then held a loya jirga, or grand council, to set up a more legitimate administration. They drafted a constitution, and under its provisions are now preparing to hold democratic presidential and parliamentary elections in September. But the western powers have not kept their side of the pact. They have sent butter, but not guns, which matter more for now. Unlike Bosnia, which was flooded with 60,000 mainly American, British and French troops after the Dayton conference, cementing peace into place, Afghanistan has been largely left to fend for itself.

True, there are some 20,000 coalition troops still operating there, but these are mainly hunting Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda's remnants. Providing basic security, so essential to success in Bosnia, has largely been left to an under-resourced International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), with a grand total of 6,500 men, almost all of them based in Kabul. The Afghan capital, in consequence, is reasonably safe; most of the rest of the country is anything but. The coalition does, as well as running combat operations, field a dozen small security teams, including an impressive one run by Britain in the western city of Mazar-i-Sharif. But the overall effort is very much too slim.

This has large practical consequences. Without security, there can be no development: the UN, and most aid organisations, have ceased almost all activity in south and south-eastern Afghanistan, where lawlessness is at its worst. Without security, political development also grinds to a halt: so far, only around 3.5m of Afghanistan's estimated 10m eligible voters, mostly those in and around the main cities, have been registered for elections now only three months away. Holding the election in September as planned will be hard.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this represents a disgraceful failure by NATO, the organisation that last August was asked to run ISAF and extend its remit outside the capital. Since then the members of the transatlantic alliance have dithered and stalled. This week, they were finally expected to agree to send only a few hundred more troops to Afghanistan. That is far short of the 4,000 originally hoped for, which was itself too few. What is particularly wooden-headed about this is that Afghanistan ought to have been a golden opportunity for NATO to show its continuing usefulness in the post-cold-war world by conducting exactly the sort of “out-of-area” operation to which it needs to adapt itself if it is not to die. There is still time for NATO to redeem itself, but it is running out fast.

With only a third of the voters registered, with warlords and drug barons ruling the roost in much of the country, and with ominous “night letters” threatening anyone who votes with death, there is a case for postponing September's election. If Hamid Karzai, the current transitional president, is elected on such a narrow franchise, the boost to the legitimacy that he needs will be compromised. The dominant Pushtuns, in particular, will feel aggrieved, since violence may make it impossible to hold any sort of vote in their areas. However, the election has already been put back by three months from its original target date, and because of Afghanistan's savage winters a further delay would kick it to next May or later.

September's election is still worth holding

On balance, it is therefore still worth sticking to September. If, as seems sadly likely, NATO's security efforts continue to be feeble, there is little hope that an election six months or so down the line would be any better. The main result - Mr Karzai's re-election - is likely to be the same either way, even if a later election produced a rather more representative parliament. But a substantial delay would award a victory to the people who are trying their murderous hardest to prevent the elections ever taking place - the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Editorial says that NATO has missed a chance to help both Afghanistan and itself.

• Primary Source

http://www.nato.int/docu/update/2004/06-june/e0629a.htm http://www.nato.int/docu/update/2004/06-june/e0629a.htm

http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_8189.htm http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_8189.htm

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