The dream of Afghan democracy is dead

While we should certainly not quit without creating some kind of
Afghan settlement, every plan that the west makes should be formulated
with eventual and complete withdrawal in mind. We need to start
serious negotiations with the Taliban leadership now, not because such
talks promise any chance of results by next year's Afghan elections,
or by 2011, but because the great majority of settlements to such
conflicts have been achieved only after many years of negotiations.

"The dream of Afghan democracy is dead," by Anatol Lieven:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4fa6b008-3817-11dd-aabb-0000779fd2ac.html

The dream of Afghan democracy is dead

By Anatol Lieven

Published: June 12 2008 03:00 | Last updated: June 12 2008 03:00

In public, defeat in Afghanistan is unthinkable for western
governments. In private, for many it already seems inevitable - at
least if the western definition of "victory" remains the vastly
overblown goals set since the overthrow of the Taliban, within any
timeframe that is likely to be acceptable to western electorates.

In recent meetings involving Nato officials I have been struck by the
combination of public acknowledgment that, to achieve real and stable
progress in Afghanistan, western forces will probably have to remain
there for a generation at least, and deep private scepticism that
western publics will stay the course for anything like that long.
Indeed, most plans have the hopeless aim of producing clear results
within three years, for fear that otherwise Canada will not prolong
its presence beyond 2011 and the whole Nato effort will begin to
unravel.

Similarly, public statements of faith in Afghan democracy are coupled
with private expressions of near-despair when it comes to hopes of
improving Hamid Karzai's administration. Many western officials admit
privately that any real hopes of creating a democratic Afghanistan are
now dead. "If we could get a moderately civilised and effective
military dictatorship, we'd be very lucky indeed," was the grim
comment of one senior officer.

Every statement by western leaders such as Gordon Brown, the UK prime
minister, that this is a struggle for Afghan democracy makes it more
difficult to change course. The west has already spent so long talking
up Mr Karzai's democratic credentials that - absurdly - we now feel
that we cannot overrule him even when he vetoes vitally important
western policies.

The first step in rethinking Afghan strategy is to think seriously
about the lessons of a recent opinion survey of ordinary Taliban
fighters commissioned by the Toronto Globe and Mail.* Two results are
striking: the widespread lack of any strong expression of allegiance
to Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership; and the reasons given by
most for joining the Taliban - namely, the presence of western troops
in Afghanistan. The deaths of relatives or neighbours at the hands of
those forces was also stated by many as a motive. This raises the
question of whether Afghanistan is not becoming a sort of surreal
hunting estate, in which the US and Nato breed the very "terrorists"
they then track down.

We also should remember why the US invaded Afghanistan with Nato
backing in the first place: not to create democracy, or even to
overthrow the Taliban, but to kill or capture the leaders of al-Qaeda.
Today, killing Osama bin Laden should be made the top priority for
western intelligence in the region. This is not because it would have
a great direct impact on the global terrorist threat - it would not,
as al-Qaeda and its allies have long since become thoroughly
decentralised - but because such a public success would make it much
easier for us to declare victory and go home.

While we should certainly not quit without creating some kind of
Afghan settlement, every plan that the west makes should be formulated
with eventual and complete withdrawal in mind. We need to start
serious negotiations with the Taliban leadership now, not because such
talks promise any chance of results by next year's Afghan elections,
or by 2011, but because the great majority of settlements to such
conflicts have been achieved only after many years of negotiations.

Any hope either of a settlement, or of containing an Afghan civil war
after the west's withdrawal, also depends critically on Afghanistan's
neighbours. Iran and Pakistan in the first instance, Russia, India and
China in the next should be fully involved in all plans for
Afghanistan's future, their vital interests in the country recognised
and diplomatic attention devoted to trying to forge a regional
consensus. We must avoid actions in Afghanistan that destabilise and
alienate those neighbours - such as the US air strike across the
border that has just killed 11 Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan will be
critical to Afghanistan's stability long after the west has left the
region.

No quick solution to the Afghan conflict exists. The steps that I have
recommended would, however, provide an indispensable precondition for
even limited progress, which is to stop digging ourselves deeper into
our existing hole.

*www.theglobeandmail.com/talkingtothetaliban

The writer, professor in the war studies department of King's College
London, is author of America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American
Nationalism