Remember This War?

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ISAF's mission is demanding, and getting more so. In late July it took control of the south, a historically neglected region where the Taliban is particularly strong, and it will be in charge of the whole country by the end of the year. "The insurgents are fighting in numbers and with a strength that we didn't anticipate six months ago," says Major Luke Knittig, an ISAF spokesman. Taliban forces, in disarray after coalition forces toppled them from power in 2001, are now able to operate in platoon-sized units of about 40 men, and sometimes larger, and are also employing tactics honed by insurgents in Iraq, including suicide attacks and roadside bombs. Foreign forces have suffered more casualties in the past year than at any time since 2001. After six British soldiers were killed in four weeks earlier this summer, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government hurriedly deployed an additional 900 reinforcements. In mid-August, a plan was announced to pull British troops out of some isolated posts in Helmand province. David Richards, the British lieutenant general now in charge of ISAF, says he will emphasize using his troops to create "zones of security." "I'm more likely to try to facilitate reconstruction and development than just fight," he says. "We can do more of that given our numbers."

Perhaps, but the problem is that there are really two Afghanistans. One is the place Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush like to emphasize: where some 6 million people voted democratically last year for their new government and a diverse parliament now operates; where some 4.5 million refugees have been welcomed home from squalid camps in Pakistan and Iran; and where 5 million children now go to school, including girls, who were excluded by the Taliban. With that backdrop, the idea that foreign soldiers can provide a little added security while development projects and local security forces gain momentum does not seem far-fetched. But a much darker set of indicators is also at work.

Afghanistan ranks 117 out of 158 on Transparency International's 2005 index of perceived corruption. Around 60% of the population has no electricity, and 80% no potable water. The returning refugees have found few houses or jobs. The country is the world's biggest supplier of opium, the raw material for heroin. The illegal drug economy — which some analysts estimate is equivalent to half the country's official gdp — corrupts its politics, and finances the Taliban's recruitment of the unemployed and its purchase of high-quality weapons. President Karzai is highly regarded by the foreign politicians who are trying to prop up his government — U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called him an "extraordinary leader" on a lightning visit to Kabul in June — but instability and unkept promises have sapped his appeal at home. New hospitals and schools stand half finished because money has run out, or because aid agencies have removed their workers for fear of attack. Even in Kabul, the city that has profited most from international aid and a relative stability, many say life has changed little in the last five years.

That second Afghanistan is stony soil for ISAF. As troop levels increase in the south, commanders anticipate attacks elsewhere in the country where their forces are not so numerous and helicopters are in short supply. The camps in Pakistan from which Taliban fighters flow into Afghanistan (though Pakistan denies it) are off-limits lest attacks destabilize President Pervez Musharraf. Within Afghanistan, ISAF's rules of engagement don't permit it to attack the Taliban outright, but do permit "proactive self-defense" — an ambiguity exacerbated by the differing restrictions each national contingent has negotiated to the rules of engagement that reflect its government's willingness to accept casualties. On a recent trip organized by NATO, Council on Foreign Relations expert Max Boot says he heard "a British officer berating a Dutch air force officer for limiting his activities to tame convoy escorts and not having the guts to engage in real combat."