Rory Stewart, author of The Places in Between, (see my review) has an excellent short article in Time on what has been done right and wrong in Afghanistan. Here's a bit:
A smarter strategy would focus on two elements: more effective aid and a more limited military objective. We should target development assistance in provinces where we have a track record of success. Our investment goes further in stable and welcoming places like Hazarajat than it can in hostile, insurgency-dominated areas like Kandahar and Helmand, where we have to spend millions on security and the locals do not contribute to the project and will not sustain it after our departure. We should focus on meeting the Afghan government's request for more investment in agricultural irrigation, energy and roads. And we should increase our support to the most effective departments, such as education, health and rural development; they are good for the reputation of the Afghan state and the West. Creating more educated, healthier women and men and better transport, communications and electrical infrastructure may be only part of the story, but they are essential for Afghanistan's economic future.
Our efforts in nation-building, governance and counternarcotics should be smaller and more creative. This is not because these issues are unimportant; they are vital for Afghanistan's future. But only the Afghan government has the legitimacy, the knowledge and the power to build a nation.
He explains a lot about how more troops will only anger the Afghanis (something we should understand - who wants to be occupied forever?) and that bigger, Western-controlled government, will be equally unwelcome. (Again, see Iraq.) The feeling I got from this piece was that it is a lot like what the Three Cups of Tea author has accomplished - work from the bottom up, help people help themselves and make sure they have ownership in the project and you have a good chance at success. (Keeping in mind that security must be maintained.)
Of course this is something we have barely figured out in our own country, so whether or not our government will make the leap when it comes to Afghanistan, I have no idea. (See New Orleans for evidence of government errors versus private enterprise success.)
Stewart's conclusion is a bit startling:
Transforming a nation of 32 million people is a task not for the West but for Afghans. Creating a narrative of national identity is not a technical engineering problem but more a question of mythmaking. Afghanistan's future must combine elders like Nabi with the aspirations of 5 million refugees, recently returned from Pakistan and Iran. And it will be influenced by even larger forces: the eddies of local ideologies, charisma, the fundamentals of population growth and natural resources, global commodity prices and the nation's relations with its neighbors, from Iran and Pakistan to China. It will draw on government bureaucracies and opaque tribal structures, on old constitutions and new cultures, on religion and luck. Afghans have the energy, the pride and the competence to lead that process. The West, however, does not. It should not waste its money, its lives and its reputation trying to do the impossible. It should invest in what it does well. We do not have a moral obligation to do what we cannot do.
He lives in Kabul and he knows these people and this place. I wonder if Senators McCain and Obama have taken the time to read what he has to say.
More on Afghanistan in coming months, especially as I review the amazing nonfiction picture book, Afghan Dreams by Tony O'Brien.
[Post pic is the famous shot of the young Afghani girl from two decades ago. One wonders what might have happened if the Cold War had never arrived at her doorstep and she had been permitted instead to go to school.]
