WBPOnline, LONDON – Former British Labour foreign secretary, David Miliband, is currently one of the UK political representatives to remind the world and the British public about UK's engagement in Afghanistan. Miliband warns of “forgotten war” in the country that has been struggling to acquire political and social stability for many years.

 

The former UK's foreign secretary says that the ongoing revolutionary turmoil in Egypt as well  UK's military intervention in Libya has shifted the attention of  British government and the public away from their ongoing frustrating attempts to help Afghans stabilize their country politically. And the end of the game is approaching with the British troops planned to leave Afghanistan by 2015.

 

So what will happen then? Will Afghanistan turn to become terrorist haven again due to political power vacuum created after the foreigners leave, and military incompetency from the side of the Afghan National Army to secure stability and national unity?

 

Miliband stresses the importance of shifting the UK's strategy from the military operations to  ensuring political stability in a nationally unified Afghanistan after international forces leave and the newly built Afghan National Army (ANA) assumes the full scale security responsibilities. This process of security responsibilities shifting to the hands of ANA should be accomplished by 2015. According the the latest announcement by the UK government, British troops, currently 10,000 of them serving in Afghanistan, should all come back home by the end of 2015.

 

The political process towards national reconciliation and stability after the international forces leave Afghanistan will be a very difficult, painful and long lasting effort. It will be very difficult to unify the country based on strong tribal, linguistic, ethnic and geographical identities and affiliations that differ from region to region, village to village. This process will be the most important task to be accomplished by the Afghans themselves. Afghans themselves need to realize the importance of being unified on a national level in their home country, and at the same time respect their ethnic and linguistic differences, in order to become stronger and more immune nation against the foreign mischievous and often detrimental manoeuvrings in their home country.

 

The problem is that the international community led by United States and UK operating in Afghanistan have had more that ten years to help Afghans  assume their own political and mlitary responsibilities in their own country and thus build respect in the eyes of their neighbours.  Instead, the international armed forces locked themselves up in an asymmetric military stalemate, desperately trying to fight the well hidden enemy - the enemy who can ambush and disappear in minutes in a rough mountainous geographical environment.

 

British involvement in Afghanistan, which began after the terrorist attacks in United States in 2001, has been primarily aimed at military operations led by United States and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Operations that have caused many civilian casualties. Wrongly led and performed strategic operations  has caused many deadly night raids in the remote Afghan villages, often driven by wrong intelligence and thus ending up as a useless armed efforts to fight local Taliban fractions.

 

However, it should be pointed out that some of those operations brought some fruit. Provincial Reconstruction Teams have made a lot of efforts in rebuilding the country's infrastructure, schools, public buildings and many other projects and thus helping to rebuild the war torn Afghanistan.

 

The British had already fought three wars in Afghanistan before they entered this country again in 2001. All three wars, stretching throughout the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th centuries, had been caused by the British fear of increasing Russian influence in the region. The first two of them ended up catastrophically for the British with their defeat and consequent deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan. The third Anglo-Afghan war ended with new border line dividing Afghanistan and the then British India, the so-called Durrand Line - the cause of the cross-border conflicts and political anarchy in this region ever since.

 

The fourth time the British arrived in Afghanistan in 2001 was with a mission to fight Taliban regime and, consequently, help Afghans to rebuild their country after many years of devastating military conflicts. So far, the mission seems to be far from being accomplished.  Let us see what comes out this time.

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