Afghanistan is a problem. It's got a corrupt leader, is a leading exporter of drugs, a neighbor that is only just realizing Islamic terrorism is a problem for them, too, a NATO commitment that is best described as "half assed", Russian ambivalence about the region, and public opinion in Britain and America that is split on whether to continue in the region, or not. Of course, 5 or 6 years of being ignored haven't helped.
Leaving Afghanistan is not really an option - it has no viable government, never mind a police force that is even "reasonably for the area" effective. Or honest. Leaving the place will simply flip the entire nation back to the Taliban, and then the west will be subjected to a very confident terror group or two. They will be more than capable of paying for, and obtaining, nuclear weapons. (In terrorism, it's one thing to be able to pay for a weapon. That's a different problem to actually obtaining one.)
For those in Britain, the best analogy I can think of is "Northern Ireland, without the troops keeping everyone apart." For Americans, Afghanistan is not Obama's Vietnam - although I'm sure there are some Republicans who would love to turn it into that. No one can say the British troops did a marvelous job in Northern Ireland, but they did prevent an overall massacre. And that's basically where we should have been a couple of years ago. But we're not.
I don't know if the answer is to let Afghanistan break up into its traditionally tribal areas (they aren't nation-states), and simply provide help to those regions, or if it is to try and impose some sort of nation-statehood upon the country. A model like the US one might work - states that have a high degree of autonomy, with a Federal government that has some authority. Whatever happens, it seems that the current setup is a short path to corrupt government. When the tribe, or the family, is more important than the common good - corruption and nepotism automatically follow. Where nepotism goes, corruption becomes rampant. It's that simple. You need a real appreciation for the incorruptibility of law, and for the principles of fair government, to have an effective and reasonable government. I don't see that in the upper echelons of the Afghani government.
One thing that will help Obama figure out a new Afghanistan policy is to ditch the concept of "winning" in that place. No one has ever conquered it; people say Alexander the Great did, but even he had trouble there. "Winning" in such a territory is simply not an option - keeping the bad guys out, or holed up where they can't do any harm, is the equivalent of winning. (Heck, even the Taliban had trouble figuring out how to govern the place! They gave up trying.)
Whatever the new policy is, it will be - I guarantee - unpopular, expensive, difficult to implement and an election issue.
Carolyn Ann
"When the tribe, or the family, is more important than the common good - corruption and nepotism automatically follow. Where nepotism goes, corruption becomes rampant."
ReplyDeleteThis bit reminded me of a fascinating book I've just finished reading entitled 'Tropical Gangsters', which described the experiences of an employee of the World Bank who went to Equatorial Guinea to try and help that country develop some semblence of an efficient modern economy. Towards the end of the book, one of the locals the author worked with claimed that many of the country's (considerable) problems ultimately stemmed from the same thing: the population's weak concept of the idea of the modern nation state, and tendency to place much more importance on tribal and familial affiliation. Although the book came out in 1990, I can't help thinking nothing much has changed in that part of the world since then.