A Wishlist for Afghanistan

Ten years ago, the war in Afghanistan was easy to cover. You left Kabul in the early morning, drove north for an hour to the frontlines that ran across the famous Shomali plains. On one side were the Taliban, on the other troops loyal to the Northern Alliance.

You would stop by and visit the local commander, usually sitting with a cup of tea, a rug and a radio, and then, avoiding the mines, walk up through the shattered vines and apple orchards to where the frontline positions lay. A few interviews, five minutes in a bunker if the usually desultory shelling started, and an hour later and you would be back in Kabul.

In 2002, the Taliban had been defeated. The frontlines on the Shomali plains had gone. Traveling around the country, I was surprised by the depth of the widespread goodwill towards the western forces. I had feared that Afghans, particularly the Pashtun tribes in the south and east, would resist this latest foreign invasion and that, with much of the country against them, we would see British or US troops stuck in isolated firebases, heavily armed islands in a sea of hostility.

Now, six years later, we are fast approaching that scenario. Some things have gone right - the Shomali Plains now boasts de-mined vineyards, rebuilt villages, schools, clinics and roads - but many others have gone wrong. In Kabul, the most honest and the best informed are talking of the need for a radical change in strategy if all that has been achieved is not to be lost. How can this be done? The following are a few ideas culled or condensed from dozens of interviews with senior diplomats, government officials in Kabul last month.

Afghanistan should be seen as a country not a conflict. The vast proportion of our effort and focus ? political and journalistic - is military. Relatively minor troop reinforcements receive disproportionate attention. The real problem is the weakness of the Afghan government. This needs to be the key thrust of all policymaking. Counter-insurgency strategies have failed in the 20th century, such as in Algeria or Vietnam because the regimes the troops were trying to support lacked legitimacy. Somehow Afghans need to be given faith in their government.

Equally, 25 million Afghans must not be seen as some kind of shapeless mass there to be moulded. Winning hearts and minds does not just mean persuading others that you are right. The state we should be trying to build is the one that is closest to what the Afghans want, not closest to the one that we think they should have. And that state is likely to be considerably more conservative in religious or social terms than we would like. Given general sentiment in the region, it is, paradoxically, likely to be relatively anti-western too.

Many interviewees spoke of the need to make armed force ? and in particular air power - a tool of last resort, not the default. The very presence of foreign troops saps the government's legitimacy. They should not be withdrawn ? chaos would follow ? but the blunt instrument of armed force needs to be made sharper. There needs to be one unified command in Afghanistan and one set of rules of engagement for all troops. Training the Afghans should be the priority. Tours of duty must be lengthy so individuals can gain real knowledge and build real relationships, and clearly air strikes that kill civilians must be stopped. Good intelligence comes from patient work with communities, not from paid informers or predator drones. Coalition commanders argue that air strikes save the lives of their soldiers. The politicians reason that this prevents the critical loss of public support for the war at home. In fact, every dead Afghan civilian prolongs the fighting and risks many more western soldiers' lives in the long run. Western voters are prepared for casualties if the war seems winnable and the strategy convincing. But not when they see soldiers dying for a lost cause.

The actual nature of the Taliban needs to be recognized too. These are not barmy bearded terrorists, but seasoned and capable fighters who have, so far, fought a coalition of 40 nations with state-of-the-art weapons which outnumbers them in the field by at least two-to-one to a stalemate. Equally it needs to be recognized that the Taliban in part represent a long-standing conservative, reactionary, ethno-nationalist tendency within Afghanistan and that they have gained ground as much by establishing a parallel administration in the area they control as much as by the gun. They are not simply terrorists. It would be much easier to counter them if they were.

Attention devoted to Afghanistan must no longer be intermittent either. The incoming US president needs to appoint a powerful figure with special responsibility just for Afghanistan with a large staff and regular access to the Oval Office. As Afghanistan is clearly a regional problem ? there can be no peace there until there is peace in Pakistan too ? a series of major conferences bringing together regional powers are also necessary.

These need input too not only from the EU and the US but also China and Russia. Nations that profess themselves leaders of the Islamic world such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt or key western interlocutors such as Jordan and Turkey must be convinced to engage more fully in Afghanistan. They can provide much needed legitimacy, diplomatic capital and advice. Iran will also have to be included.

The wish list could continue ? arrests of major drug dealers, protection for honest judges, more development cash channeled through the Afghan government rather than through foreign agencies, an expansion of successful community-based development and local government programs, a powerful central council bringing Afghans and the international community together, economic initiatives to bring India and Pakistan closer together etc etc.

How much of this is likely? Not much, to be honest, which leaves three scenarios. The bleakest outlook is that there will be no change. The Taliban gets still stronger, the west gets tired and pulls out and, as regional powers meddle more, we are back to the violent chaos of the 1990s.

The brightest is that recent reverses turn out to be a temporary setback. The recent Taliban advances are rolled back and as temporarily halted development kicks in again district after district drops into government administrative hands. Before we know it the insurgents are nothing more than a nuisance in the deep south.

The third prospect is of a long and grueling conflict that gradually takes the form of a vicious civil war. Any economic development is restricted to the north, while the south is run by an increasingly entrenched Taliban but for a few points ringed by western troops. There is ongoing violence in Pakistan, some haphazard elections, a new conservatism in Kabul that draws some of the insurgents sting but not enough and a gradual draw-down of international troops - once a form of victory can be convincingly declared leaving a fragile state running a chaotic, war-wracked country. Not exactly edifying but sadly I think it is the most likely.