Seven Years On, Terrorism
Still Threatens Afghanistan
M. Ashraf Haidari
Middle East Times
September 11, 2008
On September 11, 2001, the world woke up to a tragic day that has been
recorded in recent history as a consequence of neglecting failing or failed
states during the 1990s. The loss of more than 3,000 American lives was not just
an isolated event that we sadly witnessed on the morning of 9/11 but the
culmination of many such tragic events which had been unfolding before our
watching eyes thousands of miles away from American shores in Afghanistan.
It is now an established fact by all accounts that had the United States and
its allies helped rebuild Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the Soviet forces
from the country in 1989 and the ensuing fall of the Afghan regime in 1992, the
country would not have become a no man's land -- a hotbed for global extremism
and terrorism -- in the following years. However, soon after Afghans effectively
delivered the last knock-out blow to the falling "Evil Empire," the United
States and its Cold War allies achieved their strategic objective in Afghanistan
and quit the country, leaving its impoverished people to pick up the pieces on
their own.
It was clear that Afghans could hardly make it on their own after their
country was utterly devastated with over two million Afghans killed, millions of
others wounded and permanently disabled, and over five million Afghans made
homeless and displaced throughout the world -- let alone the unspeakable
suffering inflicted on every Afghan family that continues to torment them to
this day.
The post-Cold War vulnerability of the Afghan people and their country became
a gap quickly filled by the same extremists who had been recruited and supplied
by the West to bleed and defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. Regional players
such as Pakistan's army created the Taliban movement to advance its strategic
interests in Afghanistan, while the Taliban pursued their medieval extremist
agenda to punish an already suffering nation in the name of God. At the same
time, al-Qaida took advantage of stateless Afghanistan where it established its
global terrorist operations to hit hard at American targets worldwide.
Therefore, what changed the world's static attitude towards Afghanistan was
indeed the tragedy of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. The
tragedy reminded the newly elected U.S. administration and America's allies of
the job their previous governments had left half done in Afghanistan a decade
earlier, which they now had to complete together to ensure global peace and
security.
Since international re-engagement in Afghanistan seven years ago, the key
institutions of a permanent government have been established with considerable
progress made in rebuilding infrastructure, expanding access to basic
healthcare, and providing education to an increasing number of Afghan girls and
boys across Afghanistan. However, the country's progress is increasingly
eclipsed by deteriorating security and weak governance which impede
Afghanistan's longer-term stabilization and reconstruction.
Thus, the key question to ask is that if we are keenly aware of the cost of
neglecting Afghanistan again, then what should be the way forward? How can we
succeed in our collective efforts to secure Afghanistan and ensure international
peace and security?
First of all, in a country where there are too many inter-connected and
overlapping problems competing for urgent resolution, it is important to narrow
down our priorities and focus on the ones with the potential of helping resolve
the rest overtime. This means a departure from ad hoc approaches to
nation-building in Afghanistan where the precious assistance of tax payers in
donor countries has so far been wasted on quick fixes, which have made no real
difference in the lives of the Afghan people over the past seven years.
Domestically, it is critically important to prioritize the strengthening of
the Afghan nascent state institutions so they will soon gain the capacity to
govern effectively, address the corruption problem, and adopt and implement
policies that promote long-term economic growth. Without security and good
governance, Afghanistan will be unable to attract foreign capital intensive
investment in the natural resource and infrastructure sectors, which we know can
help provide off-farm employment for poppy farmers and jobs for youth and the
returning refugees. And we know from the experience of many developing countries
(from the "Rise of the Rest": China, India, Brazil, Turkey, South Korea,
Malaysia and others) that only sustainable economic growth will help reduce
poverty in Afghanistan, not any unlimited amount of relief hand-outs.
It is important to stress that Afghanistan cannot achieve self-reliance and
self-sufficiency unless the international community enables it to do so. In
light of the country's massive rebuilding needs, the international community
must match ends with means. Committing long-term resources is absolutely
necessary but ensuring that aid is effectively delivered through the Afghan
state institutions to achieve the objectives of the Afghan Marshall Plan -- the
Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) -- is equally important.
Therefore, the international community must deliver on the commitments they made
in the recent Paris Support Conference to align their aid resources with the
objectives of the ANDS, a key priority of which is to build capacity in the
Afghan state institutions in order to address overtime other domestic challenges
facing Afghanistan.
Regionally, the United States and NATO have now realized that the Taliban
cannot be defeated in Afghanistan without dismantling their command and control
infrastructure in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, from where
they daily launch terrorist attacks inside Afghanistan, mostly killing innocent
civilians. And unless external institutional support for the Taliban insurgency
ends, military and civilian casualties will continue rising in Afghanistan,
gradually giving the terrorists an upper hand. Therefore, Pakistan's military
and intelligence establishment must be bilaterally and multilaterally persuaded
to cooperate sincerely in the war against terrorism, while the country's
civilian government must be strengthened to ensure stability in Pakistan and the
rest of the region on the long run.
At the same time, NATO needs to bolster its military strength in the fight
against cross-border terrorism in Afghanistan. The commanders on the ground are
asking for three additional well-equipped brigades (about 10,000) with a
flexible mandate to secure Afghanistan. The U.S. recently announced deployment
of some 4,500 additional troops to Afghanistan by early next year, which should
be complemented with more forces from other NATO member states to bolster
military efforts to contain and defeat the Taliban.
Ultimately, however, the key to securing Afghanistan will rest in the
build-up of a professional Afghan army and police. The Afghan government plans
to expand the size of the Afghan National Army to 134,000 soldiers within the
next five years, as well as jump-starting the reform and building of the Afghan
National Police to meet Afghanistan's security and defense needs. For
Afghanistan to realize these objectives, however, the international community
must firmly commit to providing the country with long-term military and law
enforcement equipment and training resources. Doing so will dramatically cut
down on the current financial and human cost of international military presence
in Afghanistan, while enabling Afghans to defend their country more effectively
now and in the future.
After seven years in Afghanistan, the international community understands
that failing to secure the country will only strengthen the Taliban and weaken
the trust of Afghans in democracy and their support as a strategic asset in the
fight against terrorism. But the tragedy of 9/11 reminds us that failure in
Afghanistan is no longer an option, and peace can hardly take hold in Pakistan
and the rest of the region without stability in Afghanistan. Nor can global
security be ensured without consolidation of Afghanistan's democratic
achievements over the past seven years. Hence, all stakeholders must sincerely
commit to success in Afghanistan, and exit the country only when the Afghan
people firmly stand on their own feet to defend their country against the twin
threat of extremism and terrorism in a predatory neighborhood.
M. Ashraf Haidari is political counselor of the Embassy of Afghanistan in
Washington, DC. His e-mail is
haidari@embassyofafghanistan.org
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