Financial Times Editorial Comment: Afghans should not suffer because of the focus on Iraq

Financial Times Editorial Comment: Afghans should not suffer because of the focus on Iraq
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: March 19 2007 18:18 | Last updated: March 19 2007 18:18


Four years to the day after the US launched its invasion of Iraq, one of the great casualties of that adventure – Afghanistan – is still suffering.

Ever since bombs starting falling on Baghdad on the night of March 19-20 2003, Iraq has consumed the world’s attentions, a lapse the Taliban has exploited to rebuild their forces.

Nato is now engaged in its biggest ever ground offensive to regain the initiative, but its strategy, and that of the wider world community, remains inchoate and improvised. This approach is misguided and short-sighted. The terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 should serve as an indelible reminder that if Afghanistan reverts to a failed state, the consequences could be felt across the world.

To deal with this challenge, military muscle is not enough. At a similar stage of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, five years after the 1979 invasion, the Red Army launched the most intense offensive of the conflict so far, complete with saturation bombing. Yet the Soviet occupation ended in ignominy because of the difference in the two sides’ appetite for fighting and the failure to win around the Afghan population.

Nato has tried to learn those lessons, stressing reconstruction and development as much as the military struggle against the Taliban. The US has finally begun to give greater priority to the rebuilding of Afghanistan’s shattered infrastructure, bolstered by a $10.6bn package this year. But Michèle Alliot-Marie, France’s defence minister, and Franz Josef Jung, her German counterpart, have voiced worries that the operation still puts too much weight on military force.

Too often, British, American and Canadian troops find themselves in firefights, only to call in a bomber aircraft to bring the exchange to an explosive end. Such tactics are no way to win hearts and minds, frustrating and perilous though it is to exchange fire with an unknown enemy.

Nato has admitted that its reliance on air power led to too many civilian casualties last year. It has not yet done enough to address this fatal flaw. One step would be to provide more soldiers – an issue where continental European countries remain laggards.

The US and Britain have led from the front by providing more than 5,000 new Nato troops in the past few months. But if alliance solidarity means anything at all, the national “caveats” that restrict the freedom of movement of thousands of continental European soldiers must also be lifted. That way, Nato forces serving in the relatively placid north and west of the country can aid their allies fighting and dying in the south and east.

Other strategic dilemmas remain unresolved. The alliance must strike a common, forceful line on Pakistan, which still harbours Taliban leaders across the border. The drugs trade that finances the Taliban also needs to be tackled. Yet no progress will be possible if elementary judicial and penal structures are not in place in southern Afghanistan, as well as roads and markets for legitimate produce. To help bring about such bare necessities, organisations such as the United Nations, the European Union and the World Bank need to step up their presence on the ground.

It is the least the world can do for a long-suffering country. Just as important, it would be an act of international self-interest. As the experiences of the past have shown, neglecting Afghanistan is a dangerous temptation – and one that should not be indulged.