The forgotten conflict

Moments after President George Bush’s appeal to the nation Wednesday night to increase American troops in Iraq, I thought of another conflict—the ongoing struggle in Afghanistan—and noted a troubling irony. For months, our military leaders have been telling us how little a temporary surge would affect the military reality on the ground in Iraq. The problems we face are too large—and too political—to be solved with what amounts to a Hail Mary pass in the final moments of the game; however, in Afghanistan, 21,500 American soldiers could make an immense difference, but out of sight, out of mind. As troublesome as it is, the conflict in Afghanistan simply hasn’t received the press attention of Iraq, despite the fact that Taliban insurgents have been steadily gaining in strength and numbers over the past 18 months.

The irony is made more bitter when one considers that, at about the time Mr. Bush addressed the country for more troops in Iraq, there unfolded the most severe military clash in Afghanistan since September. Reporting for the Associated Press, Jason Straziuso wrote,

NATO said Thursday its forces killed scores of insurgents who had crossed from Pakistan in the biggest battle of the Afghan winter, while Pakistan’s army fired artillery at trucks supplying militants on the other side of the border.

NATO tracked the suspected Taliban militants through air surveillance while the fighters were still in Pakistan. Once they crossed the frontier, NATO and Afghan soldiers attacked the two separate groups with ground fire and airstrikes during a nine-hour battle that began Wednesday evening.

Straziuso’s report also contains a factoid that all those familiar with Afghanistan know, but seemingly few others, that 2006 was the single-bloodiest year inside the country since 2001, as an estimated 4,000 people died due to the continuing conflict, and while such an isolated fact is not the only determinant of success or failure, it would seem to suggest what diplomats and relief organizations have been saying for months, namely, that Afghanistan is regressing and that the Taliban is growing stronger, not weaker.

Against this backdrop, I have a hard time believing that 20,000 American soldiers wouldn’t help salvage the situation and put the country’s central government on a sounder footing. Like most anything else, more soldiers aren’t the whole answer, but clearly—if we can believe our own generals—they would do a hell of a lot more good in Afghanistan than in Iraq, particularly since such an increase in Afghanistan would represent a 50% leap. Writing in the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Barnett R. Rubin states that “creating a reasonably effective state in Afghanistan is a long-term project that will require an end to major armed conflict,” among other things. This may surprise some Americans who might have assumed the security environment in Afghanistan was more or less secure. It is not, and it is growing worse, not better. Might those troops Mr. Bush wishes to deploy to Iraq be better utilized along the Afghani-Pakistani border? Sadly, it is a question few people in the media or on Capitol Hill are asking.