Honorary Afghanistan Study Group Member: British Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee
Will Keola Thomas – Afghanistan Study Group
The British Parliament’s bipartisan Foreign Affairs Committee has released the results of a year-long inquiry into the war in Afghanistan which concludes that “…the current full-scale and highly intensive counter-insurgency campaign is not succeeding.”
In a statement accompanying the report, Conservative MP and Chair of the Committee Richard Ottaway warned:
“There is a danger that without appropriate political leadership, the current military campaign is in danger of inadvertently derailing efforts to secure a political solution to what is essentially a political problem. The US should not delay its significant involvement in talks with the Taliban leadership because, without US support in this respect, there can be no longer-term peace in Afghanistan.”
Other highlights of the committee’s conclusions and recommendations that could have been copy-pasted from the Afghanistan Study Group’s report A New Way Forward:
- the main justification for fighting the war, eliminating Afghanistan as a base for Al Qaeda, “may have been achieved some time ago”
- the logic behind the argument that a full-scale counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban is necessary to prevent Al Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan is flawed
- “…the pre-requisites for a successful military campaign are currently lacking…” (see safe-havens for the Taliban in Pakistan and the steady erosion of the Afghan government’s legitimacy in the eyes of its citizenry)
- the current focus on weakening the insurgency through military means may reduce the chances of achieving the essential political settlement by increasing mistrust and further radicalizing the insurgency
- and given all the above: “An Afghan-led, but U.S. driven, process of political reconciliation is the best remaining hope that the UK and others have of achieving an honourable exit from Afghanistan.”
The committee’s report calls on the British government to use its influence as the second largest contributor of troops and funding for the war effort to encourage the U.S. to step up its efforts to find a political solution and negotiate directly with the Taliban.
For its part, British Prime Minister David Cameron’s administration responded to the report by implying that its conclusions were outdated. Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters that, “The situation in Afghanistan is constantly changing and in some cases has moved on from the evidence given to the [committee].”
The foreign secretary conveniently failed to provide any detail regarding the cases he was referring to, nor did he offer any evidence that the situation had changed in any significant respect from a year ago. The British public, however, has definitely “moved on” from supporting their country’s continued military engagement in Afghanistan. Polls show that over 70% of Britons believe the war is unwinnable and they are turning their attention to the $8 billion a year their government spends on Afghanistan as they face the deepest budget cuts in 60 years at home.
Meanwhile, assertions of progress on the ground in Afghanistan continue to crumble under the weight of their lofty claims while the counterproductive military campaign grinds on…
