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Old Monday, November 29, 2010
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It’s a long, bumpy road for Nato

It has been an arduous task for Nato to agree members to contribute troops for a cause the outcome of which remains mired in uncertainty

By Ather Naqvi
A tweet by Paolo Coelho reported in a newspaper the other day aptly sums up the recently-concluded Nato summit in Lisbon. Referring to Nato’s role in Afghanistan it says, "We can lose the war, but we can’t lose face". Precisely that seemed to be the sentiment among some of the 28 members of Nato, notable among them the US, that resolved, among other things, to bring relative peace to the troubled lands of Afghanistan by 2014, a deadline that already stands challenged by their formidable foe — the Taliban.

Lisbon Summit Declaration issued at the end of the summit charts out Nato’s "vision" for the next decade, Strategic Concept as they called it, aimed at defending its members "against full range of threats", including plans of developing a missile defence capability to counter possible attack of ballistic missiles.

One of the immediate and most challenging targets for Nato is Afghanistan where it plans to entrust Afghan forces with the task of dealing with the Taliban by year 2014. Given the level and speed of training of the Afghan forces that seems unlikely at the moment.

But if that happens, or anything near that, a possible pack up from southern Afghanistan is a likely outcome, especially for British troops. Here lies the crux. It has been an arduous task for Nato to agree members to contribute troops for a cause the outcome of which remains mired in uncertainty.

Britain has been eager to call it a day in southern parts of Afghanistan where most of its troops have been pitched against the Taliban in some of the world’s fiercest battles in recent times. Understandably, the battles in Afghanistan have cost Britain 345 troops since 2001, of which about one hundred have been killed this year alone. Still, the biggest sufferer in this respect is the US with more than 1200 death on the Afghan soil.

And it is not just Britain that wants to pull itself out of the Afghanistan quagmire, Germany, which has more than 4,900 troops in Afghanistan, has also joined the chorus of reducing its troops in 2012.

The summit follows months of preparations and discussion among a group of experts headed by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that prepared recommendations for the new strategy in May this year. Despite all the reason and foresight that must have gone into preparing the new strategic vision, there is no guarantee that things would go according to plan.

While it looks unlikely at the moment that Nato would meet its deadline, US Vice President Joe Biden is hopeful about the future of ending US military involvement in Afghanistan, saying the withdrawal of US troops may begin earlier than 2014, "Look, beginning in the summer of 2011, we’re going to begin to transition."

But there is not much substance in what Biden is saying keeping in view US’s earlier stated commitments on the level of US engagement and withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. The Obama administration has gone back and forth on the issue of withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan —from the surge of some 30,000 US troops in Afghanistan early last year to the now intimation of starting to leave Afghanistan from July 2011.

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai seems to still pin some hope in Nato’s presence after the 2014 deadline. After returning home from NATO summit, Karzai told journalists at a news conference that "NATO as a partner would keep its presence beyond 2014 in Afghanistan but it would be limited".

On another level, much would depend on the contours of relations between Nato and Pakistan. If Nato continues to flout the international rules of military engagement as it did in the shape of violating Pakistan airspace last Tuesday for the second time, things would not be working for Nato.

Pakistan, as a non-Nato ally, has taken the commitments expressed by Nato members with a pinch of salt. It has cautioned against a withdrawal of Nato troops from Afghanistan without taking into account the "ground realities", meaning thereby that Afghan troops are adequately trained to take the Taliban head on.

Pakistan’s concern is understandable. It finds itself in the thick of a military operation against the Taliban in South Waziristan and is constantly under pressure from the US to expand the military offence to North Waziristan as well. If Nato troops, currently about 1,30,000, start leaving Afghanistan leaving behind a poorly trained Afghan army, it may not only destabilize the Karzai government but also cause the insurgency to spread its tentacles inside Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Perhaps it was this complexity of the situation that the Pentagon had to issue a statement acknowledging that the three neighbours of Afghanistan — Pakistan, Iran, and India — have an important role for bringing in peace and stability for Afghanistan.

Despite all the unanswered questions and tough time ahead the attendants of the summit dubbed the gathering as a "historic breakthrough". If Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is to be believed, "This summit will go down in history. The strategic approach is clear, and it shows we are all working on the same footing." Overly optimistic? Let’s see.
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