Elevating Those Guns A Little Lower In Afghanistan Posted by Michael Cohen

Last week I did a radio interview on US policy in Afghanistan and the host asked me, quite seriously, if we needed to stay in the country until we could be sure that the rights of Afghanistan's women were properly safeguarded. As I responded at the time this is simply not a justification for continuing the US war in Afghanistan. Even if our presence in Afghanistan did strengthen women's rights (at best a dubious notion) there is no way that we can ask American soldiers to put their lives on the line for a goal that, while laudable, is simply tangential to US national security interests.

And yet, this notion that women's rights is a key rationale for continuing the US engagement in Afghanistan is an argument that I hear all the time - which is why Rajiv'sstory in the Washington Post today about the downgrading of women's issues in USAIDcontracts is sure to set off some fireworks:

The removal of specific women's rights requirements, which also took place in a $600 million municipal government program awarded last year, reflects a shift in USAID's approach in Afghanistan. Instead of setting ambitious goals to improve the status of Afghan women, the agency is tilting toward more attainable measures.

"If you're targeting an issue, you need to target it in a way you can achieve those objectives," said J. Alexander Thier, director of USAID's Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs. "The women's issue is one where we need hardheaded realism. There are things we can do, and do well. But if we become unrealistic and overfocused . . . we get ourselves in trouble."

I usually get into trouble when I start saying optimistic things about US engagement in Afghanistan, but this is very smart thinking and demonstrates a level realism about Afghanistan that, to date, has largely been missing from US deliberations.

Of course, none of this is to say that women's issues are not important or that the US should not make every effort to ensure that women's groups have a seat at the table in any future political negotiations with the Taliban. And to be sure USAID is not abandoningthe cause of women's rights in Afghanistan; but instead putting a greater focus on "providing basic services to the population" and above all recognizing that with limited time and resources we must focus our energies on what we can hope to accomplish in Afghanistan. For reasons that should by now be obvious there is only so much that the United States can effectively do to put Afghanistan on the path to Jeffersonian democracy. Our focus must be on winding down the US war there and doing all we can to leave Afghanistan in a relatively stable place when we go.

If only we could convince the rest of the US government to come up with a political strategy that reflects the sort of realist thinking that USAID seems to be operating with . . . we might actually have some legitimate reasons for optimism about Afghanistan.

 

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