Unanswered questions

[bemildred]

At a time when two of the foreign interventions in which the west is engaged, Iraq and Afghanistan, are proceeding with such difficulty, it is either brave or foolhardy of David Miliband to say that our experience in neither country should cloud the moral imperative to intervene. This week doubts over the irreversibility of the security gains made in Iraq by last year's surge of American troops prompted the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, to support the view that this year's planned withdrawal of US troops should be delayed. As a result, the number of US troops to be deployed this summer, about 130,000, will be much as it was last summer. The surge is becoming a splurge.Afghanistan, by common consent, needs more troops on the ground to fight a resurgent Taliban, which has tripled its attacks in the past four months. Washington is trying to persuade its Nato allies to fulfil their pledges of troops to the Afghan mission, so far unsuccessfully. A British foreign secretary praising the virtues of intervention could be courting disaster.

And yet it is right that the argument be aired, for two reasons. First, because the definition of what constitutes a just intervention has been hijacked by the neoconservatives, and it is important that progressive, pro-European politicians like Mr Miliband define what they mean when they say we should support democratic movements in a post-Iraq and -Afghanistan era. Second, because Iraq and Afghanistan will not end the need to make foreign interventions and it is important that we do not repeat the same mistakes. Mr Miliband rightly emphasised the need to support institutions rather than individuals. This was the mistake made in post-communist Russia and post-Ba'athist Iraq. But by the same token, it is also the mistake we are making in continuing to support President Pervez Musharraf, who has locked up independent judges in the run-up to a flawed general election in Pakistan.

Mr Miliband called for a new round of provincial elections in Iraq, for international organisations "like the UN or Nato" to offer security guarantees to new and fragile governments that abide by democratic rules, and for "civilian surges" for democracy led by educated people able to access information and communicate with others. Some are sensible ideas, but the ability of a group of nations to affect another is as much a question of agency as what happens on the ground. The success of a project to widen democracy depends on who is delivering it. There is, for instance, a big difference between the United Nations and Nato. One is a multilateral institution that has been weakened by the Blair and Bush era, the other is seen as a projection of western power. Nato may yet prove to be a symbol of western impotence in Afghanistan, but the two organisations send diverging signals to the current target audience - Pashtun speakers in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Mr Miliband may be more a prisoner of the assumptions of the past that he cares to admit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/13/foreignpolicy.iraq