WASHINGTON (AFP) — Afghanistan risks collapsing unless the United States and its allies redouble their fight against Taliban insurgents and rebuild the impoverished country, experts warned US lawmakers Wednesday.
With bombings and attacks on the rise and extremists gaining ground in neighboring Pakistan, the United States must make the international mission in Afghanistan a higher priority, experts told the House Armed Services Committee.
"Unfortunately Afghanistan has taken a back seat to US military involvement in Iraq and still does," said Karl Inderfurth, a former senior diplomat under ex-president Bill Clinton's administration.
"Some way must be found to deal with this perpetual problem of Aghanistan being overshadowed by the Iraq war."
Defeating the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan will require a more coherent and robust effort among Washington and its allies, employing diplomatic and economic means as well as military operations, he said.
"Without a genuine and long-term commitment on the part of the United States and the international community, Afghanistan will fail again," said Inderfurth, the former assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs.
Inderfurth warned Washington had previously abandoned Afghanistan after 1989 with terrible consequences, culminating in the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Citing a new Hollywood film, "Charlie Wilson's War" -- which depicts the true story of a Texas lawmaker's efforts to funnel arms to Afghan mujahideen fighters battling Soviet troops occupying Afghanistan in the 1980s -- Inderfurth said the movie carried an important message.
"We walked away from Afghanistan after the Russians withdrew their forces in 1989," he said. "We all know what happened after that, up to and including 9/11. This is the take-away message. We still have time to get Charlie Wilson's war right."
Inderfurth called the recent decision to deploy 3,200 extra US Marines to southern Afghanistan as "an important step" in the right direction and called for a regional diplomatic push.
Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters had regrouped since the Taliban regime was ousted by US-led forces following September 11, 2001 and were staging an increasing number of attacks, said General David Barno, who served as US commander in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005.
It was "a much stronger force than the enemy we faced in 2004" that "regenerates itself within the tribal areas of Pakistan," Barno said.
Defusing unrest in Afghanistan hinged on the outcome of political turmoil in Pakistan, which serves as a base for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, said Barnett Rubin, senior fellow at the Center for International Cooperation at New York University.
"There is no way to succeed in Pakistan and Afghanistan without a partner in Pakistan whose actions in alliance with us are also supported by the main political forces in Pakistan," Rubin said.
"Unfortunately today they are not, because the military regime of General (Pervez) Musharraf lacks legitimacy in Pakistan today," he added.
A precondition for asserting control over tribal areas in Pakistan was ensuring a free election next month in Pakistan with a government free of military interference, he said.
Inderfurth called for Washington to help the Pakistan military to combat extremists operating along Pakistan's border and to counter radical schools and training camps. But he warned against any unilateral US military intervention inside Pakistan, which he said would prove "disastrous."
Representative Duncan Hunter at the hearing criticized NATO allies for failing to provide combat troops for operations against the Taliban, saying Congress reserved the right to retaliate by blocking lucrative defense contracts with European firms.
"Some allies restrict their forces from certain geographic and operational missions in Afghanistan -- effectively hamstringing our commanders on the ground," said Hunter, who recently dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Hunter said he had written to defense ministers warning that their countries "risk losing access to defense contracts offered by US taxpayers" if they failed to provide troops and civilian support for the NATO-led mission.
But Barno said "there is a limited amount of political will in NATO" and little public support in European states to deploy combat troops against Taliban insurgents in the south.
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