By any clear-eyed reckoning, Western policy in Afghanistan is failing. The Taliban, under their leader Mullah Omar, have rejected all attempts to draw them into negotiations. Their declared aim is to drive foreign forces out of the country and proclaim victory. Jjihadi militancy – a lethal mix of Islamic extremism and tribal xenophobia --which the West armed and promoted to defeat the Soviets has now been turned, with a vengeance, against it. In the circumstances, Western objectives for Afghanistan – to defeat the Taliban and build a democratic and effective Afghan state --seem increasingly unrealistic. American and British casualties are soaring; economic activity in the war-ravaged country is at a standstill; and the writ of President Hamid Karzai's corrupt and incompetent government barely runs beyond Kabul. An important new factor is that Western opinion, especially in Britain but also in Germany, is turning against the war. The time for a radical rethink of strategy may be approaching. Put in power with Western backing more than seven years ago, Karzai is hoping to secure a third presidential term at elections on August 20. He faces stiff competition from some 40 rivals, including a former foreign minister, Abdallah Abdallah, and a former finance minister, Ashraf Ghani. The latter, in particular, has called for a three-year cease-fire with the Taliban as a move to end the war. Having lost much of the Western support he once enjoyed, Karzai pledged this week that, if re-elected, he too would attempt to negotiate with the Taliban. But there is no evidence that, with the wind in their sails, the Taliban would respond favourably to any such overture. Karzai's recent proposal to bring back General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a controversial former defence minister, as his military chief of staff, will not reassure the Taliban as to his good intentions. Dostum, a former warlord who was on the CIA payroll, is thought to have been responsible for the massacre of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Taliban prisoners during the 2001 invasion. Fundamental mistakes – for which the Western Powers, the Iraqis and the Afghans have paid dearly – were made by former U.S. President George W Bush. After al-Qaeda's 11 September 2001 attacks on New York, Bush decided to invade Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban government, and then in 2003 to switch America's war effort to Iraq, on the fraudulent charge that Saddam Hussein had links with al-Qaeda and was developing weapons of mass destruction. But it was al-Qaeda which mounted the terrorist attacks of 9/11, not the Afghans or the Iraqis. What should have been a narrowly-focussed counter-terrorist operation -- by Special Forces, intelligence agencies and police -- aimed exclusively at putting al-Qaeda out of action, turned into two major wars, and two long occupations, which have devastated Afghanistan and Iraq, and destabilised Pakistan. Meanwhile, Osama Bin Laden and his closest colleagues remain at large. President Barack Obama opposed the Iraq war and is clearly determined to withdraw all U.S. troops from that country. But in Afghanistan he seems to be compounding Bush's error – with tragic repercussions for Pakistan. He has poured more U.S. troops into Afghanistan and, with help from Britain, has launched a major offensive against Taliban strongholds in the south and east of the country. At the same time, Pakistan has been pushed into making war on the tribes of the north-west province, causing a massive exodus of more than two million destitute and terrified people. Is this the best way, one might ask, to defeat al-Qaeda? Or is the strategy totally counter-productive? Indeed, instead of separating al-Qaeda from the Taliban -- and from the fierce Pashtun tribes on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghan frontier from which the Taliban draw most of their recruits -- Western policy has served to merge Taliban, Pashtun and al-Qaeda into a single enemy. The dilemma is particularly acute for Britain's over-stretched armed forces, for the country's depleted finances, and for beleaguered Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Britain's armed services number 187,000 men and women, financed by a current military budget of £38bn, which includes £9bn for weaponry and equipment. Pressure is acute for cuts in the defence budget, and for the sacrifice of some major items of equipment, just at the time when critics are claiming that British troops in Afghanistan are under-manned and under-equipped for the task they have been given. Britain has 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, the second largest troop presence after the United States. It has lost 184 soldiers in Afghanistan, five more than its total losses in Iraq. The U.S. has lost 732 soldiers in Afghanistan and 4,322 in Iraq. For what noble cause, critics might ask, have these young men been sent to their death? The Conservative opposition, led by David Cameron – which seems well placed to win the next British general elections in 2010 – has pledged to conduct a new Strategic Defence Review, which must inevitably mean delays or even cuts in some key military programmes, such as the two aircraft carriers, estimated to cost £4bn, but which are not now expected to enter service before 2018 – if then. Another item which may well be delayed or cut is the multi-billion pound replacement of the American-made Trident missiles in Britain's nuclear submarines. Other major items of equipment which have been delayed include an infantry armoured vehicle named FRES (Future Rapid Effect System); a new generation of Nimrod maritime reconnaissance aircraft; and Type 45 destroyers for the Royal Navy. Out of six of these ships originally planned, only one will enter service in December 2009. The Joint Strike Fighter, which the British are developing with America's Lockeed Martin, has also been subject to serious delays. At this time of painful financial stringency, when Britain's Gross Domestic Product is expected to fall by 3.5 per cent in the current year, pressure is mounting among the public, the politicians and the military chiefs, for a reduction of Britain's war effort in Afghanistan. But quite apart from the evident need for economies, is it really true, as both Barack Obama and Gordon Brown repeatedly claim that, unless the Taliban are defeated in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the world would be exposed to al-Qaeda terror? Can Western armies really hope to create a viable, well-governed, centralised state in Afghanistan, a country of virtually impassable mountains and fiercely independent tribes? Rather than wage major military operations, would it not be wiser for America and its allies to revert to a more focussed counter-terrorism strategy? Instead of making the world safer, the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan seem in danger of creating still more enemies for the West. end
