US must remember lessons from hasty Iraq withdrawal
The West must hold its nerve in Afghanistan to keep the Taliban and Isis at bay, writes Peter Foster.
THE news of the accidental bombing of a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz, killing nine members of Medecins Sans Frontieres, and 22 people in all, has a wearisome familiarity after nearly 15 sapping years of war.
The language of apology for the ‘‘collateral damage’’ feels spent and empty, not unlike – its detractors will say – Nato’s strategy in Afghanistan.
As a result, there will be those who will see this tragedy as yet further evidence of the limits of Western military power and the need, come December, for United States President Barack Obama to make good on his promise to pull US troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year.
But there are good reasons why such a withdrawal would be premature, even while accepting that the fall of Kunduz last week is a painful reminder of how frighteningly little US$60 billion (NZ$92.9b) in military training for the Afghan National Army has achieved.
Kunduz is a strategically vital symbol of Taliban strength that was the organisation’s last redoubt when it was routed in 2001. Its recapture (with the help of US air-strikes, note) was essential to preserve any shred of credibility for Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president.
To leave now – as General John Campbell, the top US commander in Afghanistan, is expected to tell the US Congress this week – would be to risk opening the door to a full Taliban resurgence.
The lessons of the hasty US withdrawal from Iraq in 2013 and the subsequent rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in the ungoverned spaces left behind surely point to the need to stay the course in Afghanistan.
The attack on Kunduz was both a statement of intent but also, say diplomats, an attempt by the Taliban to probe the resilience of its adversaries and the resolve of the Ghani government’s Western backers to retain influence in the process.
Seen in those terms, diplomats and military officials arguing for continued engagement in Afghanistan say the country is now at a fulcrum moment – and, as the Taliban’s foray into Kunduz showed, the risks of a repeat of an Iraq scenario are real. Not for the first time in his presidency, Obama finds himself being importuned by his generals not to cut-and-run.
But this time, unlike the 30,000-strong surge in 2009, the reported goals are realistic – perhaps 8000 troops to remain next year, and a small but potent counter-terrorism force into 2017. Talk of ‘‘nation-building’’ is long since over, but providing limited but meaningful ongoing security guarantees to the Afghan Government would seem to be a prudent insurance policy.
Obama has been criticised in the past for his ‘‘diary diplomacy’’ – advertising America’s intentions to its enemies, who duly took advantage of the warning.
With Syria in chaos and Isis entrenched in Iraq and finding fresh toeholds in Afghanistan, now is the time – notwithstanding the disastrous mistakes in Kunduz – for the West to hold its nerve.
To leave now would be to risk opening the door to a full Taliban resurgence.
Attack condemned