Euros (Wisely) Question Afghanistan Strategy

We might just get the Afghanistan debate we so badly need after all, it just won't be in Canada and we'll have to wait until April. It'll be at the NATO summit in Bucharest that several key European members will give their take on "the mission" and on the Canadian government's demand for another 1,000 combat troops for Kandahar.

Mitch Potter of the Toronto Star's European bureau writes that the Europeans, at least, are asking hard questions about the fundamentals of the mission:

"No matter whether you ask in French, German, Spanish or Italian, the pat response is to turn aside the question [of coming to Canada's aid in Kandahar] itself. And to ask a series of more difficult questions instead. Such was the case yesterday, when a senior French government source told the Star:

"The question is not `how far,' but simply `how?' – how are we going to rebuild and pacify Afghanistan? How are we going to cope with the present strategy? How are we going to win? And what do we mean by `win'?"

Though they are presented with the freedom of anonymity, the doubtful misgivings of European officials polled by the Star in recent days point to a hidden debate on whether the time has come for NATO to reconcile the international community's ambitious goals in Afghanistan with the drifting, uncertain reality of the mission on the ground.

French military analysts say the prospect of a stronger French commitment to Afghanistan has little appeal within the corridors of power in Paris, where the landlocked central Asian country has never before appeared on the radar of traditional French interest.

"Most people in decision-making circles don't see Afghanistan as an problem unto itself," said Etienne de Durand, a defence specialist with the French Institute for International Affairs.

"They see it as a place you need to go to for the sake of trans-Atlantic solidarity, even if we don't really belong there. I don't agree with that. We should be there and we should have been there earlier. But saying so doesn't make it so.

"And if President Sarkozy decides this is what he is going to do, a very pessimistic French public will want explanations. Especially if we start taking casualties in big numbers."

"Let us say France comes through with a bit more or a bit less than the 1,000 soldiers Canada wants in Kandahar," he said. "It puts us at a huge risk, but it won't necessarily help you guys out in a big way.

"That's because we don't actually have a strategy. We talk about democracy, but a lot of us now believe it is not even possible to create democracy in Afghanistan. Instead, the best we might hope for is a reasonably functioning government with an army that can keep the peace, at least by Afghan standards," de Durand said."

At least we can hope that we have, in Bucharest, the honest, meaningful debate we're not getting from our own MPs in Ottawa.