Hanging on in Quiet Desperation... Posted by Adam Blickstein

Secretary of State Rice meets today in London with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband to try and tie up some of the many loose ends regarding Afghanistan, most notably who will be the UN's Special Envoy after Hamid Karzai rejected Lord Paddy Ashdown, apparently known as the "Michael Jackson of postconflict reconstruction", for that post. Lord knows that Afghanistan needs a superstar to assist in the country's reconstruction (perhaps not someone who thinks that giving the Aghan's lot's of rides and toys is enough). But like Jackson's son Prince in 2002, Afghanistan continues to dangerously dangle over the edge between stability and chaos. The three independent reports that came out last week further confirm this. 

But while the U.S. and NATO must do all they can to stabilize the country and create the kind of security that will prevent the resurgence of the Taliban, our European allies remain in a precarious spot, one that might prevent the sort of wholesale strategic reset we need. 

First, few of our European allies will want to increase their troop levels-in accord with a lame duck Bush Administration because their own domestic discord remains high.  This is especially true in Britain, where Labour's unpopularity degrades any chance that the Government will bend out of its way to further ally itself with an unpopular war and unpopular American administration. A second obstacle is the continued realization that Hamid Karzai is a weak leader whose criticism of British troops will only embolden Britain's reluctance to accept the Rice's overtures. This, coupled with Germany's overt and public rejection of Defense Secretary Gates' call for more German troops and Canadian PM Stephen Harper's threat to remove troops, leaves NATO's mission in Afghanistan in an uncertain place. 

Expect no substantial results from Rice's meeting as the British, and indeed most of our NATO allies, will most likely be playing the 'long game' from now until 2009: namely, wait until a new U.S. administration takes power to make any consequential strategic moves, and instead maintain a steady presence there, leaving it up to America to fill in the gaps. Of course with the majority of our forces still bogged down in Iraq with no sign of imminent redeployments to Afghanistan, the situation regretfully displays no sign of improving for the rest of 2008.
 

Comments

[David Tomlin]

Pardon my pop-culture ignorance. Is 'the Michael Jackson of . . .' supposed to be a good thing, as the linked article seems to imply? When I think of MJ the first thing that comes to mind is the dangling baby incident. I thought that was the cap of a reputation for being flaky and irresponsible.

[David Tomlin]

Oh, sorry. I see the baby is mentioned in the next sentence. I clicked through to the article and then posted my question before reading the rest of the post.

I was just confused, because I thought 'the Michael Jackson of . . .' was supposed to be pejorative to begin with.

[kenny]

"Expect no substantial results from Rice's meeting as the British, and indeed most of our NATO allies"

Well of course not. Every time someone from the US government decides to lecture people over here about how important afghanistan is, we look at Iraq , raise an eyebrow and ignore them.

Sending our young men to die in afghanistan because the americans are too busy occupying a major oil exporting country is not an activity than many europeans regard as very worthwhile.

Although if it had got 'paddy pantsdown' out of the uk for a while i might have gone for it.

[Lane Brody]

It's rather sad that the US led NATO, in political will and dollars, for 50 years after saving and rebuilding Europe in WWII to then have NATO vote to support the US after 9/11 in Afganistan only to have very few NATO nations willing to contribute the extremely modest forces NATO pledged.

It is in fact shameful. That Germany will not engage in combat operations, among others, greatly annoys some of the other NATO countries heavily engaged.

That many NATO nations refuse to fund defense forces able to engage in modest efforts is a disgrace. Is seems that many NATO nations are only willing to pay for forces able to, at best, engage in peacekeeping and report after report finds some of these nations not able to do that task.

The notion that NATO would help out more in a post Bush world is not supported by the facts. Many of these nations are not willing to provide basic kit for their own needs. This will not change post Bush nor will the shameful lack of resources.

All of NATO can't simply be bothered to fill out the very modest force levels they all agreed to. It's a disgrace. Where is the shame?

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