Afghanistan needs a political solution

US President Barack Obama's military strategy in Afghanistan makes no sense unless it is accompanied by a bold political initiative to bring the war to an end by means of a negotiated settlement. Without an urgent political plan to end the fighting — something in the nature of ‘political shock therapy' — the nine-year war will drag on, costs and casualties will mount, and America's decline, already painfully evident over the last decade, will gather pace.

If this indeed were to happen, Obama's presidency would suffer a devastating blow, almost certainly ruling out the prospect of a second term.

What is the president's strategy? It has been described as ‘escalate-then-exit.' Its inherent weakness is that there is no hint as yet of the necessary political underpinning which might give it a chance of success.

As he himself announced at West Point on December 2, Obama plans to despatch an extra 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan over the next six months and then start bringing them home 18 months later, in the summer of 2011. In turn, Nato allies have been dragooned into contributing an additional 7,000 troops.

This strategy makes many assumptions, most of them unrealistic. It assumes that, in the short span of time between escalation and exit, President Hamid Karzai's administration will become a model of good governance, and that a hugely expanded Afghan army and police force will be able to take over responsibility for countrywide security. Meanwhile, the Pakistan army will have tamed the tribes on its side of the border, over-running and destroying the remaining pockets of insurgency.

In both countries, a grateful population, its security assured, would then turn against the Taliban, who would accept defeat, give up their weapons and revert to being good citizens. Evidently, this fanciful scenario bears no relation to reality.

The grim truth was brought home this week by reports of yet another spate of devastating bombings in the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Peshawar, which killed 49 people and wounded many more, and by the news from Afghanistan that another British soldier had died in combat, bringing the total up to the fateful landmark of 100.

For what noble cause are these young men dying? This is the question being asked with increasing weariness and insistence in Britain and the United States, as well as in the other countries contributing troops to the Afghan war.

Stop killing Muslims

The Afghan war is unwinnable because it is being waged against Pashtun nationalism. It has little to do with Al Qaida. As an organisation, Al Qaida is said to number no more than about 100 fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But as an idea, it has spread across the world. The way to defeat the idea is to stop killing Muslims — which means ending the war.

What might political shock-therapy look like? The following is a possible two-stage plan, of which the first stage would be to put maximum effort into cajoling and pressuring India and Pakistan to arrive at an arrangement over Kashmir. A mutual disengagement of forces would free the Pakistan army and intelligence services from their paranoid dependence on extremists in Afghanistan, needed both to counter Indian influence in Afghanistan itself and to pin down the Indian army in Kashmir.

A second stage, following hard on the heels of the first, would be to persuade the six main regional actors concerned with Afghanistan — Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India and China — to form an Afghan contact group. Each member of this group has its own reasons to want a stable and peaceful Afghanistan.

The function of the contact group would be to summon and sponsor the convening of a great tribal council, where all Afghan factions, power centres, warlords, and ethnic communities would be represented, including the Karzai government and the Taliban.

The principal aims of this tribal council would be to declare a nationwide ceasefire, to reshape the country's institutions (perhaps on a less centralised basis than at present) and to form a government of national unity.

It would be best if the United States and its allies were not represented at the council. But they would have to pledge to withdraw their troops once the new Afghan government took office. Equally, they would pledge to contribute X billion dollars over X years for Afghan economic and social development, the funds to be administered by UN agencies.

For their part, the Afghans would have to agree to no longer provide sanctuary to Al Qaida, although this may need to be quietly negotiated in the wings of the council.

A solution of this sort would provide the West with an honourable exit from the Afghan trap. It would also provide immense relief to the Afghan population, the helpless victims of an endless war.

 Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.