WHEN PRESIDENT Obama addresses a Nato summit meeting on Afghanistan in Chicago next month he desperately hopes to be able to say that the 11-year-old conflict is close to an end. For the international alliance, at least.
Following a meeting of the organisation in Brussels on Thursday secretary of state Hillary Clinton and defence secretary Leon Panetta were talking confidently of a consensus among the troop-contributing member states on three key commitments: to accelerate getting the Afghans into a lead combat role; to keep a limited international troop presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014 when all US forces are supposed to be home; and to pay most of the subsequent $5.5 billion a year seen as needed to support the Afghan security forces. Who will pay what remains unclear.
The process of international disengagement will not be accelerated, but it is seen in western capitals as important to appear to do be doing so. Particularly this week – not a good week. It opened with the Kabul raids on Sunday by the Taliban Haqqani networks on foreign embassies and parliament, which lasted 18 hours, killing 11 members of the Afghan security forces and four civilians. They reflected both a degree of organisation and strength which took Nato and Afghan commanders aback, and serious failures in their intelligence.
The confirmation later in the week that the Haqqani network was indeed involved will also contribute to a further deterioration in US-Pakistani relations – the US sees the network as what the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, in September last called a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s intelligence service. The US has repeatedly called for Pakistani action against the group’s strong bases in North Waziristan.
To make matters worse, another spectacular own goal later in the week: the LA Times published two of a gruesome series of photos from soldiers of the army’s 82nd Airborne Division which included, among others, one of soldiers posing with Afghan police holding the severed legs of an insurgent bomber.
The photographs are the latest of a series of recent PR setbacks for the US that have led to considerable anti-US feeling in Afghanistan. In January an internet video showed marines laughing as they urinated on the corpses of three rebels. In February, there were riots after US employees “inadvertently” incinerated copies of the Koran. In March, an army sergeant was charged with killing 17 Afghan villagers, mostly women and children, in Kandahar province. Meanwhile, distrust is building between US forces and their Afghan allies.
Each incident further widens the gulf between Nato and the Afghan government. President Karzai, his office said after the latest photos, “emphasised that the only way to prevent such bitter experiences in the future is a quick and complete security transition from foreign forces.” On which, all are agreed. The problem, as Karzai knows well, is how to do it without leaving chaos behind.