Since Operation Enduring Freedom was launched in October 2001, relations between the Afghan people and American forces have always been brittle. This fragility is mirrored in the strained and intermittently brusque relationship between Washington and Kabul. Afghans are proud of their resolve and doggedness in out-lasting foreign aggressors. For the U.S.-dominated ISAF mission to succeed in creating a secure space for the necessary economic and political reforms to take root, gaining the trust and confidence of the Afghan people is paramount - the idea of 'winning hearts and minds.' Events over past weeks have damaged that fragile trust, perhaps irrevocably.
In January a video emerged of four U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban members. Last month it was reported that a number of copies of the Koran, the sacred text of the Islamic faith, were dumped and incinerated in a garbage pit near Kabul. The event sparked widespread violent demonstrations in which more than 40 people died, including several Americans. In the most serious incident yet, a rogue American soldier killed 16 Afghan civilians on the weekend, including several children reported to have been killed by a single shot to the head. More than just eroding trust between U.S. forces and the Afghan people, this episode threatens to shatter it entirely.
In yet more grim news regarding Afghanistan we passed another unwelcome milestone last week when six British soldiers were killed in a huge explosion that destroyed their heavily armoured Warrior vehicle. It brings the death toll of British personnel killed in Afghanistan to 404. The incident, which represents the biggest loss of UK life in a single incident in the country since 2006, sparked renewed questions about our continued involvement in a conflict that has gone on for over a decade. In one sense, this milestone figure is irrelevant; we should be asking why we are in Afghanistan every time a life is lost, whether it be the first, twenty-first, or four hundred and first.
Some have argued a successful outcome was always unlikely as long as politicians were unprepared to commit the necessary manpower required; the issue was one of resources. There is some truth in that. The U.S. Department of Defence's chief financial officer from 2001 to 2004, Dov S. Zakheim, is convinced that the war in Iraq drained the resources and willpower required to secure a lasting peace in Afghanistan. Further down the line, others would argue that President Obama's "surge" strategy in 2009 committed too few extra troops and by signposting an exit date simply emboldened the Taliban and insurgent forces to wait things out.
Both are valid criticisms but the Afghan 'project' was severely undermined from the outset by a doctrinal clash between different international agents. For the new neo-Conservative Bush administration in Washington the mission in Afghanistan was about pursuing security at home through action abroad. Juxtaposed to this, the UN-led reconstruction mission in Afghanistan was concerned with state-building, a doctrine that had emerged during the early 1990s. This tension between conducting war while trying to build peace hampered efforts to establish the requisite security capabilities, economic competence, and legitimate governance structures required for a viable, stable Afghan state.
It is unhelpful and unnecessary to conclude which approach was 'right' and which 'wrong': the answer to that depends upon what criteria you are using to measure 'success'. These tensions went unresolved, however, in the years following the U.S.-led invasion, leading to a reconstruction program that was, on the whole, confused, insufficient and ultimately failed to develop the security infrastructure that would have prevented the relapse into violence in 2005 that we are still clearing up.