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Nick Harvey MPStanding up for North Devon since 1992 |
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TIME FOR RECONCILITATION?
July 24, 2009 10:23 AM
The recent spate fatalities in Afghanistan have led people to ask afresh why we are there. This is highly relevant in North Devon as our Marines and Engineers returned only recently from the front.
But, whilst a very legitimate question, this is not a rational response to recent events. The increase in deaths follows our joining the Americans in their so-called "surge". Taking the battle into enemy heartland is inherently dangerous.
We went into Afghanistan because the New York attacks of 9/11 were organised by Al Qaeda from the Afghan mountains. The objective was to deny terrorists their operating base by toppling the Taliban government which had allowed them there.
The Taliban government was toppled by the invasion and Al Qaeda fled into Pakistan. Some now argue that the job is done and we should come home - perhaps using Afghan elections next month as the opportunity to hand everything over to the winner.
In my view this is short sighted. Afghanistan has been a failed state since the mid 1970s, and remains so despite real progress being made. If NATO pulls out now, legal and stable government could not survive. The country would fall to pieces and in no time at all terrorists and others could be making merry in the lawless vacuum created.
But we cannot carry on as we are. Helmand is the toughest province, so don't judge the whole thing on our progress there. But it is painfully slow.
On current progress, bringing Afghanistan to viable nationhood is going to take much longer than British public opinion, or the Treasury coffers, or Afghan opinion - which dislikes having foreigners around - can possibly stand.
Taliban tactics have changed fundamentally from fighting a military battle to fighting as terrorists. We must adjust our approach as well. Military muscle can pressurise terrorists but not ultimately defeat them - because they work to different rules.
We know from Northern Ireland that eventually you only end a terrorist insurgency by getting people around the table and negotiating. Having branded Archbishop Makarios in Cyprus and Menachem Begin in Israel as terrorists, we ended up sitting down and negotiating terms with them.
We must now start doing the same with the Taliban on a meaningful scale. Not by handing the country over to them: that is not acceptable to the rest of Afghanistan. But some way must be found of reconciling their situation.
Helicopters and armoured vehicles would protect more troops but wouldn't change the basic stalemate. Shifting the operation into the political, as well as military, sphere is the only way to do that.
As soon as the August elections are over, that is where NATO's priority should lie.
This comment column appeared in this week's North Devon Journal entitled 'Taking the battle to Taliban heartlands'
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