PRESIDENT BUSH'S announcement yesterday that US troop numbers are to be reduced in Iraq and increased in Afghanistan registers the changing dynamics of these two wars.
Both dedicated to fighting terrorism, in the Bush administration's view this objective is now being better achieved in Iraq. The Nato operation in Afghanistan is going badly, as Taliban forces increase their military pressure on the intervention force and the Afghan government. This is bolstered by growing popular anger over steeply rising civilian casualties in attacks on villages and US air support operations and the seeming impunity of those responsible. New military rules of engagement issued this week are intended to tackle these problems, but the damage has been done.
For Nato a great deal is at stake in Afghanistan. It is the first out-of-area operation launched by the alliance, in a crucial strategic zone and on foot of al-Qaeda's linkup with the Taliban regime after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. This made the rapid overthrow of that regime an easily attained task by US troops, followed by installation of the new government led by President Hamid Karzai. He has been able to rule only with the support of regional warlords backed up by the Nato force and an expensive host of international non-governmental organisations. In practice his writ has not extended far from the Kabul region.
Progress in nation and state-building has been painfully slow. It has been mired by corruption, political alienation from foreign domination, continuing military campaigns and the huge increase in opium production, so that Afghanistan now supplies 90 per cent of the world market for the drug. The country's fate is increasingly bound up with that of neighbouring Pakistan. Currently that state is undergoing a change of presidential and political leadership which resents how Nato troops and aircraft disregard its territorial sovereignty along the 1,500 mile border with Afghanistan.
This internal and regional instability is matched by disagreements among the Nato allies on how to conduct the war. Washington insists more troops are urgently required to prosecute it, but most Nato members are not willing to supply them and some are even preparing to withdraw next year. There are also disagreements on whether outright military victory is possible or whether it is necessary to negotiate with Taliban leaders and their supporters if the fighting is to be scaled down. Increasingly this looks like an unwinnable war fought for unrealistic objectives by a divided alliance tempted to use more and more unacceptable means. It is a recipe for failure; but this would be such a shock that it is simply not contemplated by Nato's leaders.
The alternative would involve a more determined political effort to engage regional and nationalist supporters of the Taliban resistance in political dialogue for a more broadly based regime. To be convincing this would need substantial support from neighbouring powers and a gradual scaling down and later a gradual withdrawal of Nato forces. It is hard to see where the courage and imagination needed to initiate such a process can come from.