Disarming Conflict

  The key point here is a peace process. The Committee Report[i] offers yet another recognition that peace in Afghanistan will not be won on the battlefield. It will be built through a process that involves dialogue, negotiations, and reconciliation programs, a process that the Committee recommends. The report thus moves the debate well beyond the current conventional wisdom in both Kabul and Ottawa.

The latter was dutifully conveyed to the Committee by then Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier when he told the Committee that “if negotiations were undertaken by the government of Afghanistan with people who respect the Constitution of Afghanistan and who renounce violence, it would be better for the international community” (p. 24). In other words, talk to those who largely agree with you, but not to those you are actually fighting in a war.

But that posture was challenged at the Committee hearings by John Manley, a former Foreign Minister who headed the Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan which reported to the Prime Minister earlier this year: “I think it’s really important to recognize that this insurgency, unless it’s the first time ever, will not end in military success. It will end because of a political agreement that will resolve some of the issues there” (p. 23).

While there is a role for security forces in helping to create conditions conducive to a political settlement, Manley warned that “we mustn’t get ourselves into the position where we think no political reconciliation is possible and that we’re prepared to fight to the last Taliban, because quite frankly, we will never reach that point” (p. 23).

The International Crisis Group through Nick Grono made the same point to the Committee: “We are never going to shoot the last insurgent and leave” (p. 23).

The realistic objective of national and international military forces in Afghanistan is to prevent escalation of the country’s civil war[ii] and thereby create, or at least extend, space for political engagement and a peace process. Foreign military forces are not there to try to tip the balance of power and thus allow one side to “negotiate from a position of strength.”

There is in fact no evidence that current military operations by international forces are actually generating political “strength” on behalf of the government of Afghanistan. Over the July 19-20 weekend US and NATO missile strikes killed more than a dozen Afghan police and civilians in operations that were described by Afghan officials as mistakes.[iii] As anyone who has discussed with Afghans the conduct of foreign military forces knows, attacks on civilians, not to mention on the Government forces that international efforts are there to assist, are a primary source of anger against and diminishing support for foreign forces and the Afghan Government.

In addition, the recognition that the security situation is deteriorating is now virtually universal. Even Canada’s new Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Walter Natynczyk, after his initial optimistic assessment of the success that Canadian forces were having, has recalibrated his response – acknowledging some local success by Canadian forces in stabilizing communities but recognizing, as the Globe and Mail characterized his comments on CTV’s Question Period, that “ the situation is getting worse in Kabul, in eastern Afghanistan where U.S. forces have the lead and in southern Afghanistan where Canadian troops are based.”[iv]

So the objective is not to crank up the military pressure so that negotiations will help one side gain advantage in backroom deals and win in negotiations what eluded it on the battlefield. Gerry Ohlsen, a former diplomat who spoke to the Committee on behalf of the Afghanistan Reference Group, a group of Canadian NGOs engaged on the Afghanistan question, made the point in this way. “Afghanistan does not need another back-room deal forged by political elites to save their political hides. But that’s what it’s going to get if the international community doesn’t change direction soon. What Afghanistan does urgently need is a UN-supported, broadly based political dialogue, one that engages all sectors of the society and all communities of interest. They didn’t get it at Bonn or at London. They need it now” (p. 25).

While witnesses calling for a new peace process emphasized the central importance of it being a process owned and trusted by Afghans, and not one to be designed or imposed by external actors, the focus was on encouraging Canada, as the report approvingly summarizes the point, to “continue to state its belief that broad-based negotiation will eventually be required for the establishment of a durable peace in that country” (p. 27-28).

Graeme MacQueen of McMaster University’s peace studies centre suggested, as a means of facilitating broad involvement by Afghans, a three stage process that begins with dialogue and problem solving, moves to negotiations, and follows up with intra-Afghan reconciliation programs.

In the end, the Committee produced a helpful set of recommendations on reconciliation which the Government of Canada should take seriously. The list includes: 1) ensuring that all of Canada’s efforts – diplomatic, military, and development – in Afghanistan are oriented, not to winning a war, but to creating “conditions favorable to a peace process;” 2) making “a concrete commitment to promote…broad-based negotiations” nationally and in local communities; 3) “encourage dialogue among all sectors of Afghan society and all communities of interest, and thereby help to establish conditions conducive to peace negotiations;” and 4) to encourage the UN Special Envoy to take on “national reconciliation” as part of the UN mandate.