Despite my guarded pessimism, I retain a deep desire for the mission in Afghanistan to succeed. Why? I think they deserve better than this:
As Ambassador Jawad said in his recent Q&A: “Let me be clear—the Taliban and international terrorists were occupiers in Afghanistan. They were foreign to Afghanistan’s culture.”
This comes up in a recent post on Afghanistanica, discussing our favorite Afghanistan media darling, Rory Stewart. His entire post is worth reading, but the gist of it is that Stewart seems to think the Pashtuns like living in abject fear and terror, and as a result we should withdraw to the stable north and work there. Stewart’s justification for this is his belief that NATO bit off more than it can chew, and discussions of progress are misleading and counterproductive.
I call hogwash. Across much of the country, from Herat to Bamiyan (with a female governor and paddleboats), things are drastically improved since the invasion. That doesn’t mean all is well—I remain troubled by the non-progress across the south and east, and there is a tremendous need for years of more work. So Stewart is right about one thing: ISAF is terribly over-stretched and underfunded, and there are not enough resources to do the job we need to. Where Afghanistanica and I part ways with him is that, rather than calling for a partial withdrawal, we think there should instead be a massive influx of both security forces and smart development.
There are, of course, many smart experts on Afghanistan many news sources seem to ignore (no, I am not referring to myself). Rory Stewart is not one of them.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor.
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What I find amazing about this is that Rory Stewart by now apparently isn’t listened to because he has expert views to offer. Neither is he listened to because of his exciting background. He is listened to because he has an interesting background AND a particular sort of, as opposed to just any kind of, view point to offer.
I have to admit I laughed when Mr Afghanistanica declared: ‘Rory Stewart is not an expert on Afghanistan. Too bad the media doesn’t know that. ‘
If only they’d asked Mr Afghanistanica …
I have to admit I laughed when Mr Afghanistanica declared: ‘Rory Stewart is not an expert on Afghanistan. Too bad the media doesn’t know that. ‘
If only they’d asked Mr Afghanistanica …
Ok, I found Mr Stewart’s anlaysis to be perfunctorily brief. It is pretty much a theme of his – that the Coalition has overstretched itself and, crudely, it has written cheques its ass can’t cash. However, that he has gone to the trouble to establish an arts and crafts-based NGO in Kabul suggests he isn’t entirely pessimistic about Afghanistan’s prospects.
He may not have the cumulative experience of, say, Barny Rubin or the late Louis Dupree, but I believe he does genuinely care about the future of Afghanistan. I do think naifs should lay off the criticism, though. Unless they know better, of course.
Well, Nick, some apparently do. I have a feeling that Stewart nowadays is just coming up with variations on what he concluded in southern Iraq. But of course southern Iraq is not southern Afghanistan – Maysan is not Helmand. And not recognising the difference may in fact put those NGO affairs in danger.
Actually, I think Rory Stewart had developed his opinions on Western-driven development in Afghanistan wa-aybefore he reached Iraq. In The Places in Between he is pretty snarky about (I forget the precise phrasing) imposing Western concepts of liberal-democratic society on Afghanistan. However, I do not believe he is wholly cynical about the whole process: It is a recurring theme in his writing that this kind of stuff (democratisation, ) takes time. Sometimes he appears in thrall to the old Political Officers in the British Empire who would spend decades in their posts. I have a feeling, however, he would wish to avoid the fate of Alexander Burnes.
That’s true, some of that development-criticism of his does indeed come in The Places in Between already. What I thought of more specifically was his hammering home towards the end of The Prince of the Marshes things like, quote: “… Maysan, where the British had fought a prolonged and bloody battle for reform, was highly unstable. The Italian policy of inaction had produced a better result, because it had forced Iraqis to take responsibility for their own affairs.” (p. 402). Even though Stewart presents this as the conclusion of a lengthy train of thought, you’d be right to note that some of the basis for these conclusions seems to have come from way before Stewart reached Afghanistan even. He embarked on his village tour probably because he was keen on looking at the world less through urban eyes. But I don’t think his policy advice from Iraq could be useful in Afghanistan, and in fact, one of the reasons for that could be to avoid that Burnes scenario.
What’s up Nick? SWSEEL survivor greetings from across the Atlantic.
When I find a dictionary I’m gonna look up “naif.” But it’s Friday and Kirkwood is calling. First things first.
Yeah, that’s important. What is meant by naive here? Is it naive to expect that a lot more boots and guns could secure more territory?
Stewart suggests retreating to urban safe spots. Well, that shows exactly how much he’s aware of what’s going on in the south.
In fact there are only a couple of such safe spots, and that’s exactly the problem. In Uruzgan, for example, current troop numbers will not make it possible soon to expand the so-called ink blot areas there. Only so much as there currently is can be safely secured. You may always take territory from the insurgents but there won’t be enough and sufficiently trained local forces to back-fill while you move back ISAF troops to their base areas.
So I think that’s about not biting off as much as one can chew. More could and should be chewed – in the development sense, and not in the close air support sense.
I believe Rory Stewart’s precise phrase was, ‘you can only do what you can do’, which is hardly the earth-shattering revelation of the year but, in the current context of the situation in ‘the South’ (the new euphemism for ‘dem Pashtuns‘, it would seem) seems a faitly realist analysis. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rory Stewart changed his if the military situation changed, or the policymakers inn Washington and elsewhere decided to implement an Afghan equivalent of the ‘surge’, coupled with smarter development initiatives but, having worked in several post-conflict scenarios, I’m guessing Stewart has developed a fairly cynical opinion of the Coalition’s willingnessw to do what’s right. Meanwhile, he’ll keep doing what he can do with the Turquoise Foundation.