SEVEN years ago today, the West began a war in Afghanistan which is proving intractable. Military victory against the Taliban regime, which was sheltering Osama bin Laden, was swift; the US and Britain then switched their focus to Iraq.

This week’s anniversary has been marked by the emergence of new doubts and defensiveness. A leaked dispatch from the British ambassador in Kabul recommended installing an acceptable dictator as the only way to salvage a failed strategy. The British commander in Afghanistan was quoted as proposing talks with the Taliban as a way of managing an unwinnable war. Neither comment was denied. In an indirect riposte, the US Defence Secretary criticised defeatism.

There should be no illusions about the plight of Afghanistan. Despite big talk, it received barely a quarter of the money ploughed into Iraq by the US Congress. Indeed it was given only half the amount the US gave to Afghan militants to fight the Soviet army in the 1980s. The world’s poorest country outside Africa, it receives less aid per capita than any other major post-conflict state.

The West has under-funded and under-equipped the government of the hand-picked President, Hamid Karzai. A weak economy, rising unemployment, a lack of electricity and soaring crime have all increased popular dissatisfaction with the Karzai regime. To make matters worse, Washington has never made up its mind whether its primary target is Al Qaeda or the poppy growers who produce 93 per cent of the world’s opium. All this only increased the ability of the Taliban to recruit when it returned, as is now happening, to its old strongholds.

As a result, the number of insurgent attacks has increased and the fighting has spread, particularly in the east and the south of the country. Suicide bombings have increased six-fold in the past two years. British and US troops have taken severe casualties.

Not being able to win, though, is not the same as losing. It is possible for Nato troops to reduce the war to a level of insurgency in which the Taliban is no longer a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army. —Dawn/The Independent News Service