Europe backs Afghanistan strategy aimed at “regionalization”

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Europe backs Afghanistan strategy aimed at “regionalization”
27 November 2009

The US and its allies are planning a massive escalation of the war in
Afghanistan. In a television address next Tuesday, delivered from the
West Point military academy, US president Barack Obama will announce
his plans to increase the current American military contingent of
68,000 by an estimated additional 30,000 soldiers.

The NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen is at the same time
seeking to drum up an additional 10,000 soldiers from European
countries. There is every indication that he will get what he wants.
Despite increasing economic and political tensions with the US, the
European powers are completely behind the war in Afghanistan. Having
supported the war from the start, European powers would suffer the
consequences alongside the US of any Vietnam-style debacle.

According to the new German defense secretary, Karl Theodor zu
Guttenberg, the United States and its allies are condemned “to
success” in Afghanistan. The deployment is “a litmus test, not only
for the transatlantic alliance, but for the entire west,” he has said.

The decision by president Obama was preceded by fierce disputes within
the American leadership and NATO. The result is not only a substantial
increase in troops, but also a new strategy, the precise implications
of which are being played down with the term “regionalization”.

During his inaugural visit to Washington, Guttenberg said it was
necessary to put aside “the romantic idea of democratization of the
whole country along the lines of the western model” and instead
“transfer control of individual provinces step by step to the Afghan
security forces.”

Such plans are obviously shared by the American government and have
been arrived at in discussions with the US administration. Guttenberg,
who only took office four weeks ago, was received in Washington with
open arms. He has long maintained close transatlantic contacts to such
influential politicians as Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Senator
John McCain and Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg. Gates greeted
his younger colleague as a “respected voice” in security policy and a
“great friend” of the US. The president of the foreign policy think
tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, John Hamre,
called Guttenberg “the politician in Germany and probably Europe, who
was most frequently a guest in Washington”.

Guttenberg conveyed the readiness of the German government to expand
its commitment along the Afghan-Pakistan border and also assume an
“increased burden”. Officially any decision will wait until the
international conference on Afghanistan planned for January, but the
German defense secretary left no doubt that his government would
support the planned expansion of the war.

The new strategy of “regionalization” is aimed at dividing Afghanistan
into individual cantons—in a similar manner to what took place in
Lebanon and the former Yugoslavia. Up to now the US-NATO occupation
supported the government of Hamid Karzai and sold the process to the
public as “democratization”. However, occupation forces are moving
increasingly to hand over power directly to regional warlords and
their militias—on the assumption that such regional forces will follow
the orders of their imperial masters. As soon as there is no more
danger in a specific province, Guttenberg declared, then the
international troops should be withdrawn from that area.

The Frankfurter Neue Presse commented on the new strategy in
Afghanistan as follows: “Afghanistan is a tribal and clan society, in
which clan leaders determine which presidential candidates should be
selected by his subjects. Whoever has the support of sufficient clan
leaders wins the election.” The newspaper then quotes the British
general Paul Newton, who in an utterly cynical fashion summed up the
new war strategy by declaring one should pack “bags of gold” in order
to buy the co-operation of regional rulers.

Hamid Karzai, the puppet of the occupying powers, had also only been
able to hold on to power by purchasing the favors of the most
important regional clan leaders. While the occupation powers are
publicly calling upon Karzai to proceed against corruption and
favoritism, they have now adopted a strategy aimed at co-operation
with the most corrupt elements in Afghanistan.

The Taliban, the vilification of which has so far played an important
role in US-NATO propaganda justifying the war, is also included in
such co-operation. According to newspaper reports, the US government
has already established contact with “moderate Taliban” elements in
Afghanistan. According to the German magazine Der Spiegel, the chief
mediator for these contacts is the Saudi royal family.

The new war strategy will have catastrophic consequences for the
population of Afghanistan. The increase in troop levels will lead to
an expansion of the conflict and a correspondingly higher level of
civilian victims. The strengthening of the status of regional clan
leaders and warlords will increasing paralyze the country and plunge
it into even more tribal and civil conflict.

The incessant manipulation of regional conflicts reduces the country
in the long term into a plaything for imperialist interests. In his
own presumptuous manner, Guttenberg terms this a “self-sufficing
security structure”. In fact it is the oldest tactic in the colonial
war book: divide and rule.

The true character of the Afghanistan war is becoming ever more
evident. The issue was never democratization, nor the driving out of
the Taliban or the punishment of Al Qaeda, whose supporters in
Afghanistan are currently estimated at only a few dozen. The issue at
stake is imperialist control of a country that for decades has been of
great geopolitical importance due to its location between Iran and the
Indian subcontinent and the two most productive oil regions of the
world, the Gulf and Central Asia.

The war is not only directed against the Afghan people, it is taking
place against the will and to a large extent behind the backs of the
American and European population, the majority of whom reject the war.

Ulrich Rippert

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/pers-n27.shtml

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