France's decision to pull the country's 2,000 combat troops out of Afghanistan two years early, in effect leaving ahead of other NATO allies, has spawned fears that more nations in the US-led coalition will withdraw early as well. President Francois Hollande, who took office this month, made this year's pullout a pillar of his election campaign, defending his decision by telling French soldiers that “the time for Afghan sovereignty has come.” Indeed it has, as has the time come for the West to understand its own failings in the country. If the reason US and NATO troops were based in Afghanistan was to prevent the country from becoming a safe haven for Al-Qaeda, from where it might plan attacks on Western allies, by that yardstick, the NATO operation has been successful. That would agree with Hollande's announcement that the French mission of fighting terrorism and chasing out the Taliban was close to being accomplished. But if improving security for the average Afghan is the criterion by which success is measured, the answer is very different. Civilians being killed by foreign forces in night raids and drone bombardments have spawned a hatred of the West, a xenophobia, as members of the Afghan security forces turn their weapons on coalition troops. This hatred of the Afghans for their occupiers and a heightened general climate of seething tension and popular unrest has risen to levels not seen since the days of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The exit of the Americans and their allies from Afghanistan will undoubtedly be a momentous and symbolic moment for Muslims the world over. This is why Barack Obama stresses that a rushed exit was out of the question. But there is an inevitability about it all, for to some extent this is merely the NATO chapter of a wider story: Western intervention in Afghanistan from the days of Alexander the Great to British, Soviet and now modern Western military intervention has not changed fundamentally. The Afghans have always fiercely resisted the invaders and always rid their country of aggressors. The situation is so forbidding that leaders such as Obama can do little but muddle through. The allied invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was supposed to be a temporary measure, however, it became more or less permanent. This is profoundly unhealthy because it delayed the process of political and social reform and true democratization in Afghanistan. The deadline for withdrawals among NATO members has added to an end of an era feeling in Kabul for what Afghans see as the latest failed foreign venture in their country. In turn, many European countries face disillusionment and fatigue from the decade-long war and are wrestling with their own economic crises. This year got off to an atrocious start with a video which showed US troops urinating on Taliban bodies; violent protests over the “inadvertent” burning of copies of the Qur'an at a US airbase; and a rogue US soldier going from house to house, gunning down in cold blood 16 civilians including nine children. The allies should concede that such stories could be the lasting legacies of an unsuccessful transition. More than an entire decade of trying to win the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan has failed. __
