Sunday 15 May 2011 18.00 BST
- Article history
The first thing that happened in Washington after Operation Geronimo, once the whooping and hollering faded, was a whole spectrum of politicians telling President Obama to quit Afghanistan ahead of his 2014 exit plan. After all, Osama bin Laden was dead: surely this was mission accomplished? The second thing that happened was a sustained attack on Pakistan, its leaders and its top military brass, as "faithless allies" (a New York Times coinage). Surely they deserved a good kicking with the money tap turned off? Now, though, put one thing with another.
If you ask the people of Afghanistan (via regular polling for the International Council on Security and Development) what they think, their answers echo bleakly. Maybe the north of the country is a touch more optimistic, but it's Helmand province that absorbs most effort and sheds most blood. Did Marjah district there think Bin Laden's death good or bad news? Bad news, said 71%. And right around Helmand, 63% of Afghans concluded that Nato couldn't protect them, surge or no surge, with 56% more disillusioned than this time last year. Only one policy for the future commands consistent majority support: 61% want negotiations with the Taliban. In short, jaw-jaw rather than more war.
But, just over the border in Pakistan, any such prospect seems far, far away. A berserk Bin Laden revenge attack left at least 80 young soldiers dead. Many MPs rail against the west and threaten to cut military supply lines to Afghanistan. Other MPs – and TV pundits – hammer the frailty (or duplicity) of army intelligence chiefs who couldn't see Bin Laden living in a villa down the road, and then couldn't catch three Navy Seal choppers doing the retribution job for them.
It's a bubbling brew of violence, despair, humiliation and rage; much of it directed inwards on those who have helped make a failing state but much of it directed against a US and a CIA, whose interventions stoke constant resentment. What does Washington want us to do next? Root out Mullah Omar, the original Taliban leader, and hand him over. The pressures to comply (for cash) and to scheme or grandstand (for domestic purposes) are cruel and irreconcilable. But if they can't be reconciled pretty soon, Pakistan could be a far greater problem than Afghanistan ever was. What happens when a nation of 178 million souls slides into chaos?
If Nato got out of Afghanistan fast, there would be no need to bend, bully and bribe Pakistan politics this way and that. If there were less outside pressure on Islamabad then President Zardari – whose wife, remember, was a victim of murderous zealotry – would be forced to address the state of his own nation. Wouldn't the generals who reckon they always call the shots get in his way? Not in their current depleted, almost disgraced, position. The democrats would be strengthened by settlement in Kabul, not weakened. And if Washington wanted to do something really helpful, think back to the cricket world cup: India and Pakistan's prime ministers sitting side by side. Pakistan needs India, its trade, its friendship; and India needs a stable Pakistan, cleansed of paranoia.
Of course, glowing scenarios are always one suicide blast away from destruction. Of course, calling on Pakistan's elected politicians to take the high road of statesmanship, rather than the low road of cowardice and corruption, comes with incredulity attached. But even florid "wars on terror" have to end sometime. Bush invaded Afghanistan to "get" Bin Laden. Both of them are history now, but any chance of a settled, stable Pakistan will be history too, unless the calamitous chain of events along the Khyber is broken. When you're not winning in Helmand, stop digging: when you're losing in Islamabad, throw away the spade: when there's a chance of something better at last, seize it.
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