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NATO struggles with an opium-funded war in Afghanistan
23/01/2008 By Robert Matthews
On November 6, Afghanistan was shocked by the deadliest bombing in the country’s history. The suicide attack occurred in the province of Baghlan, heretofore relatively quiet compared with the violent southeastern territory.
Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images
The terrorist act killed at least 77 people, including a key opposition figure and five other members of Afghanistan’s parliament, as well as, horrifyingly, 59 school children.
The attack underscored the spiralling violence that has frazzled nerves, disheartened and alienated the population, and undermined material and political progress in Afghanistan. It has also raised the question of whether the US-led military strategy in Afghanistan, which has shortchanged political, economic and social reconstruction, has failed even to establish basic local security for the country, much less provided for long-term stability.
The reality of developments in Afghanistan since 2005 have mocked US assertions of success and the scales have finally fallen from the eyes of both the media and some government officials. Today, even the initial tactical success of the US in toppling the Taliban regime has receded in significance in the face of a growing and dangerous insurgency.
It may yet be possible to demobilise the armed men who have risen from the seeds.planted by Western error in the rocky soil of Afghanistan. It may yet be possible to craft a plan for a sustainable peace. But this can only come to be if wisdom is finally hitched to power.
In this Comment article, Robert Matthews explores the failures of US and NATO policy in Afghanistan, and asks what should be done to bring a long-awaited stability to the war-ravaged country.
The challenges that lie ahead for NATO, and its discourse with the US, European governments and the populations supporting the Afghanistan mission, will be the subject of a second article. A final essay will take up the role of Pakistan both in Afghanistan and as a central front in the global war on terror.
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Keywords
Afghanistan Conflict Conflict resolution Failed states Middle East NATO War on terrorRelated publications
- Afghanistan and the crisis in Pakistan
- The democratisation of a dependent state: the case of Afghanistan
Bio author: Robert Matthews
Robert Matthews, Associate Fellow of FRIDE, holds a Ph.D in Latin American history from New York University, where he was a teacher at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. For twenty years was a collaborator with the Peace Research Center - Centro de Investigación para la Paz (CIP) - in Madrid, specializing in United States foreign policy.
