thedrifter
01-16-07, 07:40 AM
The Next Stop
Is Iraq a distraction from the war on terror? No, say Afghanistan's ambassador and the Joint Chiefs chairman.
BY BRENDAN MINITER
Tuesday, January 16, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST
Following President Bush's speech last week, Afghanistan's ambassador to the United Nations allowed himself this thought: Everything the president proposes doing in Iraq would also be welcome in Afghanistan.
For more than five years the U.S. has waged war in that landlocked, mountainous country. And at least since the liberation of Iraq, the White House has faced criticism that it is distracted from the war on terror in the country that hosted Osama bin Laden when he planned the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The president is facing a fresh round of such attacks now that he is "surging" American troops in Iraq in an effort to stabilize Baghdad. And in the process he's watching as his case for using democracy as a weapon against terrorism is swept away.
Zahir Tanin, Afghanistan's ambassador in New York, isn't one of those critics. He stopped by The Wall Street Journal's offices Thursday and, in offering his thoughts on the current situation in his country, ended up presenting a counterargument to those who would discount the importance of establishing legitimate democratic governments as bulwarks against terrorism. The Afghanistan of his youth, he said, looked nothing like the chaotic nation that the world saw after the fall of the Taliban. Kabul, where he was born, was once a "cosmopolitan city," he said. But decades of war, including years of Soviet domination, left the country in tatters and ripe for terrorists and the Taliban to assert their supremacy. By 2001 Afghanistan had become "a disrupted state."
His choice of words is instructive. In the war on terror the U.S. is facing an enemy that's not moored to a civilian population and doesn't feel bound by international conventions. But it is an enemy with territorial ambitions and intentions of disrupting the normal operations of civil society. Mr. Tanin, who was living in London and working for the BBC when the Taliban fell, sees progress made over the past five years and isn't now one of the president's critics. Elections have been held, roads have been built linking some of the larger cities, a small national military is taking shape, and a commercial economy, though still tiny, is up and running. All are buffers against the Taliban's return and a strong argument against the voices who've said for years that democracy can't be "imposed."
But has the U.S., by being in Iraq, shortchanged Afghanistan and handed the Taliban an opportunity to re-emerge?
Here we can turn to Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who was also in New York late last week. At an event sponsored by the Oxonian Society, Gen. Pace offered a few facts to rebut the claim that the administration is distracted. Approximately 80% of Afghans are illiterate, he said, suggesting that rebuilding the country will require building a viable public education system just as much as launching military offensives.
But combat operations are far from being wrapped up. He noted that there are now two types of Taliban operating in the country. The first is the faction led by Mullah Omar, which would like to retake control of the country. The second, which the general calls "the small-t taliban," is really a bunch of drug lords trying to protect their turf. Neither group is good for the country. But, Gen. Pace said, even as the illicit heroin trade remains a significant portion of the economy--at $2 billion a year--it hasn't grown in recent years, even as the overall economy has.
Come spring, he said, there will be a military offensive. The question is this: "Will it be ours or theirs?" He wouldn't say precisely what the U.S. is planning once the winter snows begin to recede. But it's clear by raising the question that he's watching what's happening on the ground there even as the U.S. surges in Iraq. The general was, however, willing to draw a direct parallel between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If the U.S. is pushed out of Iraq, he said, the next stop for al Qaeda and other insurgents is Afghanistan. If the U.S. is pushed out of Afghanistan, he said to a hushed room in New York on Friday, the next stop is here.
Ellie
Is Iraq a distraction from the war on terror? No, say Afghanistan's ambassador and the Joint Chiefs chairman.
BY BRENDAN MINITER
Tuesday, January 16, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST
Following President Bush's speech last week, Afghanistan's ambassador to the United Nations allowed himself this thought: Everything the president proposes doing in Iraq would also be welcome in Afghanistan.
For more than five years the U.S. has waged war in that landlocked, mountainous country. And at least since the liberation of Iraq, the White House has faced criticism that it is distracted from the war on terror in the country that hosted Osama bin Laden when he planned the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The president is facing a fresh round of such attacks now that he is "surging" American troops in Iraq in an effort to stabilize Baghdad. And in the process he's watching as his case for using democracy as a weapon against terrorism is swept away.
Zahir Tanin, Afghanistan's ambassador in New York, isn't one of those critics. He stopped by The Wall Street Journal's offices Thursday and, in offering his thoughts on the current situation in his country, ended up presenting a counterargument to those who would discount the importance of establishing legitimate democratic governments as bulwarks against terrorism. The Afghanistan of his youth, he said, looked nothing like the chaotic nation that the world saw after the fall of the Taliban. Kabul, where he was born, was once a "cosmopolitan city," he said. But decades of war, including years of Soviet domination, left the country in tatters and ripe for terrorists and the Taliban to assert their supremacy. By 2001 Afghanistan had become "a disrupted state."
His choice of words is instructive. In the war on terror the U.S. is facing an enemy that's not moored to a civilian population and doesn't feel bound by international conventions. But it is an enemy with territorial ambitions and intentions of disrupting the normal operations of civil society. Mr. Tanin, who was living in London and working for the BBC when the Taliban fell, sees progress made over the past five years and isn't now one of the president's critics. Elections have been held, roads have been built linking some of the larger cities, a small national military is taking shape, and a commercial economy, though still tiny, is up and running. All are buffers against the Taliban's return and a strong argument against the voices who've said for years that democracy can't be "imposed."
But has the U.S., by being in Iraq, shortchanged Afghanistan and handed the Taliban an opportunity to re-emerge?
Here we can turn to Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who was also in New York late last week. At an event sponsored by the Oxonian Society, Gen. Pace offered a few facts to rebut the claim that the administration is distracted. Approximately 80% of Afghans are illiterate, he said, suggesting that rebuilding the country will require building a viable public education system just as much as launching military offensives.
But combat operations are far from being wrapped up. He noted that there are now two types of Taliban operating in the country. The first is the faction led by Mullah Omar, which would like to retake control of the country. The second, which the general calls "the small-t taliban," is really a bunch of drug lords trying to protect their turf. Neither group is good for the country. But, Gen. Pace said, even as the illicit heroin trade remains a significant portion of the economy--at $2 billion a year--it hasn't grown in recent years, even as the overall economy has.
Come spring, he said, there will be a military offensive. The question is this: "Will it be ours or theirs?" He wouldn't say precisely what the U.S. is planning once the winter snows begin to recede. But it's clear by raising the question that he's watching what's happening on the ground there even as the U.S. surges in Iraq. The general was, however, willing to draw a direct parallel between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If the U.S. is pushed out of Iraq, he said, the next stop for al Qaeda and other insurgents is Afghanistan. If the U.S. is pushed out of Afghanistan, he said to a hushed room in New York on Friday, the next stop is here.
Ellie