Afghanistan: Stay in Spite of Everything

The latest failure by U.S. troops in Afghanistan should not be cause for a speedier withdrawal from the country. The West has an obligation. What it needs most urgently is what it has least: time and patience.

The West’s Afghanistan mission has failed. The war against religious fanatics and murderous extremists has been lost; the struggle for the hearts and minds of the people can’t be won. That’s how it seems because democracy in the Hindu Kush is more a concept than it is reality. Human, as well as women’s, rights issues threaten to become negotiation points in dealing with the Taliban. A lost decade that has cost thousands of soldiers and civilians their lives and health. The order of the day should be nothing less then get out, and the quicker the better.

But is that the right decision?

One could maintain that the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has long since become an army of occupation rather then an assistance force.

Or one might doubt whether the chasm that has developed between Afghanistan and the West due to videos showing U.S. soldiers urinating on dead Afghans, burning Korans and massacring may ever be patched over. One can also see it that way.

But Angela Merkel doesn’t see it that way.

Merkel has determined that insufficient progress has thus far been made to justify a decision to withdraw by the end of 2014, as planned. She thus places the negotiated dates on hold, not to pull German troops out earlier than planned, but to tell them this might take a bit longer. And she’s right.

To use the latest incident by U.S. forces and the protests it caused as justification to surrender to war weariness back home would be a mistake, since it would embolden the insurgents. It would also bring shame and disgrace to NATO, supposedly the most powerful defense alliance in the world, causing unimaginable consequences for its deterrent capabilities. But mainly it would be an abrogation of our responsibilities.

To withdraw now would be premature. It would mean breaking the promise the West made to women and children to give them a better life: You aren’t alone. The West stands here duty-bound, both figuratively and literally. It should take one big step and reject failure, confront the insurgents, oppose the extremists and beat the drum for democracy and human rights. Like Sisyphus, the West should take failures in stride and continue rolling the stone up the hill.

That’s precisely the lesson this accursed war holds out to future generations — this war that started because of justified outrage over al-Qaeda terrorism and then turned negligently optimistic about building a modern nation in its place. The formative powers of the West are limited; it’s easier to sweep away old regimes than it is to build new nations. Values aren’t exportable like so many material goods.

It wasn’t a mistake to have made the attempt, but a naively ambitious government policy could take a lesson from the sober military side: High expectations and quick fixes are more likely to entrench problems than they are to solve them. Cultures can’t be changed overnight; they resist modification. “The Afghans” as a people aren’t backward, violent and ineducable. They’re justifiably angry because NATO makes errors and fails to meet expectations. What the West needs now more than anything is the two things it has least: time and patience.