Holbrooke on Afghanistan and Pakistan

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM – This week the Americans will announce their new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Attending a conference organised by the German Marshall Fund in Brussels, I’ve had a sneak preview at a session where President Obama’s envoy, Richard Holbrooke, spoke.

He was scathing about the last US administration, describing the decision to switch focus from Afghanistan to Iraq as a “historic mistake”. The starting point for the new administration, he said, is to treat Afghanistan and Pakistan as “a single theatre of war but with different rules of engagement”.

Nato troops will not be sent to Pakistan – that would cross a red line. But Mr Holbrooke was clear that the Americans see Pakistan as the crux of the problem.

That’s where al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are based. That’s where the Taliban is on the rise, notably in the Swat Valley less than a hundred kilometres from Islamabad.

Yet 80 per cent of Pakistan’s military is still focused on India, not on the threat from within, nor on the threat Pakistani extremists pose to neighbouring Afghanistan.

The much-heralded surge of 17,000 new US troops heading for Afghanistan is not the end of it. Expect to see phalanxes of agricultural advisors and massive aid for education.

Mr Holbrooke is exercised by the ineptness of the Afghan police, whom he described as inadequate and riddled with corruption, “the weak link in the security chain”.

So expect a big package of aid for police training and recruitment. Expect aid for Pakistan too, and hopefully this time it won’t largely disappear into the ether like the US$10bn which the Bush administration handed out with little supervision and few questions asked.

There are quite a few US senators and congressmen and women at this conference. Mr Holbrooke said the administration would be going to ask them and their colleagues for a significant supplemental budget for Afghanistan – and they’d be looking to Europe to match it.

I wonder what reaction they’ll get. With banks in crisis and unemployment soaring, it may be hard to get politicians to refocus on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Unless there’s another terror attack in the US or Europe, when of course, everyone will be asking once again why the problem hasn’t been dealt with at source.

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