Afghan Fallout from the Italian Job

The near panic gripping the Italian government in the wake of Thursday's suicide bombing that killed six Italian soldiers in Afghanistan is not a hopeful omen for President Obama's strategy to stabilize that country.  Conservative prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, long a stalwart ally of former president George Bush, Friday sounded almost like Democratic critics of Obama's policy in calling urgently for "a transition strategy to transfer more responsibility to the government of Hamid Karzai" and speed the withdrawal of NATO troops.

The 3,250 Italian troops in Afghanistan have not exactly been the cornerstone of the North Atlantic alliance force there.  Like the Germans, the Italians have adamantly refused to enter combat zones to fight Afghan insurgents.  The Rome-Berlin axis within NATO insists on deploying its troops strictly as peace-keepers and population protectors, not war-fighters, angering NATO allies like Britain and Canada that have suffered mounting casualties in combat operations against the Taliban. 

Still, even non-combat peace-keeping in "secure" Afghan provinces is becoming politically perilous at home, especially as convincing allegations of massive electoral fraud by Karzai's campaign make support for his regime increasingly distasteful to Western publics.  The finding by European Union election monitors that as many as a third of the ballots counted in last month's presidential election may have been fraudulent intensifies the pressure on Karzai to come clean or face rippling defections from the countries that fund and defend the incumbent government. 

That includes the United States.  Even if President Obama were persuaded by military commanders that more U.S. troops could turn the tide in Afghanistan, a certifiably phony election will burst the dike containing the rising tide of antiwar sentiment in his own party at home.  Likewise, if commanders call for yet more U.S. troops to plug the holes left by defecting Europeans, the Congress and American public will almost certainly just say no. 

Perhaps, in targeting the Italian troops on Thursday, Taliban strategists thought they would be striking the soft underbelly of the NATO alliance.  Already 55 percent of Italians were opposed to their country's involvement in the Afghan war.  A major isolationist party in Berlusconi's governing coalition, the Northern League, was already demanding an immediate pullout. 

But an embattled prime minister who was accused this spring of needing to prove his manhood with young starlets persuasively proved that manhood Friday in terms of political leadership. Despite the public's revulsion at the deaths of Italian soldiers and the political pressures for a quick exit, Italy is not going to walk out.  "This is something that we cannot decide alone," Berlusconi declared Friday, "because otherwise we would affect the confidence of other countries present there."

Of course, this is not exactly a stirring call to persevere till the mission is accomplished (though it shows far more commitment to partner nations than did the Clinton administration in unilaterally fleeing Somalia after the failed Mogadishu raid of October 1993). It is at best just a temporary reprieve for Mr. Obama's Afghanistan strategy.  And it underscores the need for Washington to engage in constant dialogue with its NATO partners about strategy and goals to keep the coalition united--something that the Obama team is said to have done more avidly than its predecessor.

Curiously, in Afghanistan it is United Nations officials -- normally the inconvenient truth-tellers about failing policies of obdurate governments -- who profess to see signs that Afghanistan's downward slide of 2007 and 2008 has been reversed.  Donor coordination and aid effectiveness are, they believe, actually improving; more capable heads of key Afghan ministries have put plans in place that the international community is lining up to fund. 

The strategic shift Obama's military commanders effected this year -- from attacking insurgents to protecting populations -- is supposedly showing results, as is the U.N.'s civilian effort, which has twice the budget it had last year.  Moreover, the Taliban is far from being a disciplined, cohesive enemy.  As one U.N. official notes, Taliban leader "Mullah Omar has as many factions to keep together and keep coordinated as NATO does and as Karzai does."

So, for the moment, NATO and the U.N. still have the Italians on board.  They have, after all, made a major non-military investment in Afghanistan already.  In the Bush administration's ill-conceived parceling out of reconstruction functions among different "lead countries," the Italians took on the daunting task of trying to help Afghans rebuild a shattered legal and justice system, and they have hesitatingly stuck with it, with admittedly modest results. 

Their wavering in the face of Thursday's Taliban attack, however, is a reminder that the Afghan government is now running down the clock in terms of continued international support.  (German chancellor Angela Merkel faced a firestorm of demands to withdraw German troops because they had caused the deaths of Afghans!)  Both the NATO alliance and Barack Obama's political coalition at home are drawing their lines in the sand on continued military engagement. 

Afghans should take seriously the warnings from Berlin, Rome, Ottawa, and London -- to say nothing of the U.S. Congress:  The outside world's troop commitment is finite and likely to start shrinking next year.  If Afghans do not start taking the lead militarily -- and politically -- in dealing with their Taliban by summer 2010, they can expect to find themselves slogging in an inconclusive civil war for another decade or more, almost certainly alone. If they do step up, they can surely keep the spigot of international assistance open.