The Torch: Critically reviewing Afstan

A report from a high-powered American panel:

The international effort to stabilize Afghanistan is faltering and urgently needs thousands of additional U.S. and coalition troops, an influential group of American diplomatic and military experts concluded in a report issued Wednesday.

The independent study finds that the Taliban, which two years ago was largely viewed as a defeated movement, has been able to infiltrate and control sizable parts of southern and southeastern Afghanistan, leading to widespread disillusionment among Afghans with the mission.

"The prospect of again losing significant parts of Afghanistan to the forces of Islamic extremists has moved from the improbable to the possible," the study says, warning that Afghanistan could revert to a "failed state."

The report is critical of nearly every governmental and international organization involved in Afghanistan, including the Bush administration, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, calling their efforts inadequate, poorly coordinated and occasionally self-defeating.

Although many of the criticisms have been made before, the new study is spearheaded by some of the same experts and organizations involved in the Iraq Study Group, the influential panel whose report a year ago put intense pressure on the Bush administration to change course in Iraq.

The co-chairmen of the group are former NATO commander and retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, and Thomas R. Pickering, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. The two men have significant bipartisan standing in U.S. foreign policy circles, which could give the study a wider and more authoritative reach than other assessments...

The Afghanistan Study Group's criticisms of the Bush administration focus on the military mission. It welcomes the Pentagon's recent decision to send an additional 3,200 Marines, increasing the U.S. presence to about 28,000 troops. But it says the Pentagon should send additional troops as soon as they are freed from duty in Iraq...

"While the fates of the two countries are connected -- and a failure in Iraq would influence Afghanistan and vice versa -- tying together Afghanistan and Iraq also creates the false impression that they consist of the same mission, while in reality the challenges in these countries differ significantly," the report says.

The panel also calls on the White House to appoint a special envoy to Afghanistan to coordinate various efforts...

The report is equally critical of several NATO allies and notes that polls have shown that majorities in all coalition countries except Britain favor withdrawal of troops.

Although the report mostly shies away from singling out allies by name, it recommends that Germany be stripped of its responsibility for training the Afghan police [emphasis added] and called for the United States to take more of that responsibility.

It also advises the U.S. and NATO militaries to shift away from conventional warfare and toward a more sophisticated counterinsurgency campaign, warning that increasing civilian casualties are angering Afghans.

The findings echo recent remarks by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and other senior Pentagon officials, who have said that NATO forces in southern Afghanistan have not been properly trained in counterinsurgency techniques...

More, from another high-powered panel:

NATO forces in Afghanistan are in a "strategic stalemate," as Taliban insurgents expand their control of sparsely populated areas and as the central government fails to carry out vital reforms and reconstruction, according to an independent assessment released yesterday by NATO's former commander.

"Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan," said the report by the Atlantic Council of the United States, chaired by retired Gen. James L. Jones, who until the summer of 2006 served as the supreme allied commander of NATO...

Jones said several steps are needed to "regain the momentum that appears to have been lost" in Afghanistan: a comprehensive campaign plan that integrates security and reconstruction work; the appointment of a United Nations High Commissioner to coordinate international efforts; and a new regional approach to stabilizing Afghanistan that would include conferences with neighboring countries such as Pakistan and Iran...

Definitely "glass half-empty" views, but good suggestions.

Barnett R. Rubin, who knows his Afstan (he's now in Kabul--here's an earlier Torch post noting his work), has a post on all this. The group blog to which he contributes has a lot of material on Afghan matters: