The End of Isolationism

Here we are, back again, after a very pleasant family Christmas. Quite clearly, the most significant event of the last couple of days — indeed, arguably of the year — is the assassination of Pakistan's opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

While The Sun headline, The Day Democracy Died, somewhat overstates the importance of yesterday's dramatic turn of affairs, it makes all the more pertinent the Taleban negotiation question, initially raised this week with the expulsion from Afghanistan of the acting head of the EU mission and the UN official criticised for having contact with the Taleban. For, peace and reconciliation are rarely if ever possible without dialogue. Yet, as the Conservative MEP Nirj Deva has written on ConservativeHome, western governments are now going to have to face the uncomfortable truth of "the dastardly and stealthy role the military regime in Pakistan has consistently played in perpetuating Islamic terrorism, both inside the country and in the wider international community."

The New Great Game is set to dominate the twenty-first century just as surely as the original British-Russian rivalry dominated Central Asian politics in the nineteenth. Sadly, for all the lives that will continue to be lost in what has become an internationalised conflict, there is no reason to suppose that the outcome this time will prove any more decisive or lasting than it was before.

The New Great Game

"KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 28 — The commander of NATO said he expects Taliban forces to regroup over the winter in Afghanistan and retake areas previously secured by the British."

In a BBC radio interview, US General Dan McNeill has said that although NATO forces have had success this year in driving Taleban fighters from the valleys of Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, where about 25 British soldiers have been killed in the past six months, the Afghan national security forces have not been as successful in holding the captured territory and that there is a chance the Taleban could return to the area in coming months, forcing NATO troops to do the clearing work again.

Perhaps, as many predicted, we are now beginning to learn the lesson of The Great Game: No army has ever conquered Afghanistan ... and none ever will.

Last Week Changed The World

Imagine that the BNP were to kidnap a group of Pakistani Muslims, hold them to ransom, and negotiate directly with the government of Pakistan, who only secure their release on condition that all Pakistani Muslims working in the UK leave immediately and no Muslim from Pakistan be allowed to return in future.

Unthinkably preposterous as this sounds, that is comparable to what the Taleban have achieved in Afghanistan. Despite being an insurgent group (or, at best, a non-state actor), they were able to engage directly a modern state in negotiations. As a reward for their lawlessness, they have secured the withdrawal of all Christian workers and the promise that no other Christian workers will return in future from an entire country, South Korea. Never before has the removal of Christian missionaries from a location been permitted as a negotiable condition in any previous hostage case.

As a consequence of this precedent, we can surely expect to see further kidnappings of Christian workers (whether missionaries or relief workers) with attendant demands that Christian workers leave nations that the hostage-takers do not control. Not only in Afghanistan, but in any location where there is a clash of Christian and Muslim evangelism or where both Christian agencies (or, indeed, any international aid agencies from what are perceived to be "Christian" countries) and Muslim extremists operate, Islamist terrorists and insurgents wanting to elevate their own political status will take note of South Korea's concession.

The world of humanitarian relief and development just became significantly more problematic. It is the South Korean government, not the surviving South Korean aid workers, who should be apologising for the trouble they have caused.

Sowing Instability

"It is an accepted axiom of the modern age that distance no longer matters. Sectarian carnage can sway stock markets on the other side of the planet. Anarchic cities that host open-air arms bazaars imperil the security of the world’s superpower. A hermit leader’s erratic behavior not only makes life miserable for the impoverished millions he rules but also upends the world’s nuclear nonproliferation regime. The threats of weak states, in other words, ripple far beyond their borders and endanger the development and security of nations that are their political and economic opposites."

In publishing the third annual Failed States Index, Foreign Policy magazine and The Fund for Peace assert that the world's weakest states aren't just a danger to themselves, but threaten the progress and stability of countries half a world away.

As if to prove the point, the latest World Drug Report confirms how events on the other side of our global village are devastating lives on our own doorsteps. We already knew that last year's bumper opium crop in Afghanistan meant the country had become the source of 92% of the world's supply of opium. We now learn that opium cultivation in the country involves one in eight (12.6%) of the population and that 50% of the heroin on Britain's streets comes from Helmand alone, the province supposedly under British control.

Afghanistan's record poppy yield and drug trafficking routes, fuelled by underground heroin factories, bring crime, addiction, and HIV/AIDS in their wake. The industry finances the activities of the Taleban, against whom the 7,700 troops we have deployed in the country are fighting. Britain's new ambassador to Afghanistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, already believes we could be heavily involved in Afghanistan for decades to come. Once again, if we are to have any hope of bringing stability to the region, we must give serious consideration to the Conservatives' suggestion to license the Afghan opium poppy crop.

Life Is Not Cheap

"Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as such." [Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan]

"A whistling.
Laila dropped her books at her feet. She looked up to the sky. Shielded her eyes with one hand.
Then a giant roar.
Behind her, a flash of white.
The ground lurched beneath her feet.
Something hot and powerful slammed into her from behind. It knocked her out of her sandals. Lifted her up. And now she was flying, twisting and rotating in the air, seeing sky, then earth, then sky, then earth. A big burning chunk of wood whipped by. So did a thousand shards of glass, and it seemed to Laila that she could see each individual one flying all around her, flipping slowly end over end, the sunlight catching in each. Tiny, beautiful rainbows.
Then Laila struck the wall. Crashed to the ground. On her face and arms, a shower of dirt and pebbles and glass. The last thing she was aware of was seeing something thud to the ground nearby. A bloody chunk of something."

Earlier today, I finished reading Khaled Hosseini's latest novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Laila's story may only be fiction, but it makes the Afghan President's criticism of "indiscriminate and unprecise" operations by NATO and US-led forces, which he says have killed 90 civilians in just over a week, all the more poignant.

Iraq Turns To Drugs

Anyone concerned about the flood of cheap heroin coming to Britain from Afghanistan will want to read today's frontpage story in The Independent.

The paper reports that "Farmers in southern Iraq have started to grow opium poppies in their fields for the first time, sparking fears that Iraq might become a serious drugs producer along the lines of Afghanistan." It carries two warnings. Firstly, that although the shift to opium cultivation is still in its early stages "there is little the Iraqi government can do about it because rival Shia militias and their surrogates in the security forces control Diwaniya and its neighbourhood." Secondly, "given that they can guarantee much higher profits from growing opium poppies than can be made from rice, many impoverished Iraqi farmers are likely to cultivate the new crop."

Once again, what have we done?

Understanding Others

Last night, thanks to BBC2, I watched a film that I have been meaning to see for a couple of years: Vadim Perelman's adaptation of the Andre Dubus III novel, House of Sand and Fog. I was not disappointed.

A tragic tale of an American divorcee ashamed of letting her family know the mistakes she's made in life and an Iranian Colonel trying to keep his family in the manner to which they were accustomed before they had to flee their home country, the character study provided an insight into some of the differences between Americans and Iranians, their contrasting moral codes and value systems.

The only thing I would have liked to have seen explored further was more about the Iranian family's earlier life in Iran and their forced exile. I felt this was a missed opportunity to provide further insight into the Iranian worldview. Nevertheless, it still compares favourably with Khaled Hosseini's debut novel, The Kite Runner, which similarly provides an excellent portal on Afghan culture. Both are highly recommended for anyone seeking to broaden their understanding of others' points of view in these days of global tension and regional conflict across the Middle East and Western Asia.

On films, I should report back on my post earlier this month about the ten films shortlisted for the human rights film award, FACE (the Film Award of the Council of Europe). The winner was Abderrahmane Sissako's Bamako ("The Court"), in which representatives of African society put the World Bank and International Monetary Fund on trial in a backyard over loan repayments and their role in Africa's economic woes.

Afghanistan Already A Narco-State

Even two years ago, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission was lamenting the fact that Afghanistan had already become a narco-state. Today, the country's drugs trade accounts for about a third of Afghanistan's economy and last year's opium harvest of 6,100 tons was 50% higher than the previous two years record levels and three times higher than the level before the Taleban banned production. Under the Taleban, production in 2001 fell to just 185 tons, but then we went to war.

Without adequate international investment for reconstruction, the country has become the source of 92% of the world's supply of opium and the source of at least 90% of heroin on British streets. This means that it’s not a problem that we can simply dismiss as being on the other side of the world. Attempts to destroy the crop have clearly failed (no more than 10% of the crop has been eradicated since we ousted the Taleban) – unsurprisingly, given that it is such a lucrative trade for all involved. A good proportion of Afghanistan opium is smuggled out through the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan, where I used to work. I recall being reliably informed by one of my government contacts there that when the chief of police arrests someone smuggling 1.5kg of drugs, he records just 1kg in the official records – efforts to restrict the trade are as affected by the culture of corruption as every other area of life.

It is high time therefore that we give serious consideration to other options, such as the Conservatives' recent suggestion that Afghan opium poppies should be purchased to make pharmaceutical products such as diamorphine, a pain-reliever used after operations and for the terminally ill, which is in short supply.

The US drug enforcement agency has previously noted that the opium industry is financing terrorism, subversive activities, and warlordism. If our troops are to have any chance of success in Afghanistan, and if we are to get a grip on the cheap drugs that are such a blight on society here in the UK, we cannot continue pursuing the same policies that have failed us so miserably since 2001. Otherwise, United Nations fears that this year's opium harvest will be even greater than last year's bumper crop will be realised.