KABUL: AFGHANISTAN, the launchpad for Al Qaeda’s 9/11 terrorist attacks, is slowly sliding toward instability. US and international forces, with their mandate to protect the country, are stretched impossibly thin. And yet Congress is on the verge of making an error that could help to undermine the goal of Afghan peace.
Since American and coalition troops ousted the ruling Taliban, great strides have been made along Afghanistan’s path to democracy. After four years of US and international assistance and military involvement, Afghanistan now has a freely elected president and parliament, a nascent national army, and the beginnings of economic development.
But the goal of a stable, peaceful, democratic Afghanistan is still gravely threatened. A resurgent Taliban, increased terrorist attacks, slowed reconstruction and development, and rising opium poppy growth are reversing the tide of success. The risk of losing Afghanistan increases with each passing day. In the last year, deadly attacks have risen by more than 20 percent. Such assaults have killed or injured more US, Afghan, and coalition soldiers, civilians, and aid workers than in the previous three years combined. Heroin production has soared, now constituting nearly half of the Afghan economy, enriching warlords and terrorists alike while fostering government corruption.
US plans to withdraw 3,000 troops are widely interpreted in Afghanistan as the beginning of the end of America’s tangible commitment to the country’s new freedom, even though more NATO troops are arriving. If the United States doesn’t want to lose Afghanistan again, its long-term political, economic, and military commitments must be beyond question.
To counter this concern, the United States and NATO should at least maintain current force levels. For now, the yardstick of international commitment is the number of international boots on Afghan soil, and American boots count the most. Given doubts in Kabul (and in Washington) that the NATO units replacing US troops in the restive south and southeast will do more than hunker down in protected enclaves, it is important for Afghan allies and enemies alike to believe that America will remain there in strength.
In addition, the United States should maintain its current economic commitment for the next seven to 10 years. Congress should fully fund President Bush’s request for $1.1 billion for fiscal 2007, money that is in doubt because of House Republicans’ short-sighted decisions to slash the president’s foreign assistance request and cut nearly 15 percent from the request for Afghanistan.
But assistance funds also should be spent in smarter ways. Afghanistan not only has suffered a quarter century of warfare, but its physical and economic infrastructure are undeveloped. The task now is not so much reconstruction as sustainable development. International assistance should focus tightly on nurturing internal economic growth. It was symbolically important in 2003 for foreign contractors to build portions of the Kabul-Khandahar road. Now, Afghans should manage all major development projects themselves.
The same goes for political development. The international community should promote political party building and a strengthened parliament, an independent judiciary, war-crimes accountability, and independent media. There should be new campaigns to disarm militias. Elections are a necessary but insufficient element in a self-perpetuating democratic system.
In addition, the explosive growth of opium production must be smothered. In a country awash with weapons and drug profits -- and drug lords prepared to use them to protect their interests -- there is no easy answer. Assistance to farmers should be increased and accelerated; eradicating their crops without a viable alternative livelihood will simply drive them into the arms of the Taliban. America and its allies should increase aid to train police and to help authorities destroy drug labs and warehouses, including using US airlifts and, when necessary, US military force against narco-traffickers.
While America should not underestimate these challenges, it must also recognize that the Afghan people are resilient, enterprising, and fed up with warlords, drugs, and violence. Give them the right tools, and they can fashion a society that will break new ground in the Islamic world.
Tom Lantos, a US representative from California, is the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee. |
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