AN IMPETUOUS
DEPLOYMENT REVEALS THE CONSTRAINTS ON BRITISH MILITARY ACTION
Editorial de "The
Independent", del 20-11-01
Con un breve comentario al final
Luis
Bouza-Brey
The position of the 100 Special Boat Service marines occupying
the Bagram airbase outside Kabul grows more
precarious by the hour. The intention, to secure a vital facility so that
humanitarian and military supplies could be quickly moved into the area, may
have been a laudable one, but the execution has been dreadfully botched. Why
deploy such a small force without first ensuring that substantial
reinforcements could be quickly moved in, and that there was political support
for this potentially dangerous action? Instead, the marines are surrounded and
hugely outnumbered by the soldiers of the Northern Alliance. There is even the
possibility that they will soon be forced into an ignominious withdrawal. It
appears that Tony Blair was rather impetuous when he ordered in British forces.
The situation at Bagram illustrates
starkly that the constraints on any British action are as much political and
diplomatic as they are military – and that they are much tighter than Mr Blair anticipated. His spokesmen have given the
impression over the past few days that they intended to see the several
thousand British troops now on standby deployed to Afghanistan as quickly as
possible, with a second batch arriving yesterday. Instead, these soldiers
remain on alert at home, unsure of their mission, and Mr. Blair has been forced
on to the back foot over his soldiers' deployment.
In his statement to the Commons last week, the Prime
Minister rightly said that British forces would only be used for as long as it
took for an international force to be assembled. Mr. Blair also identified some
clear tasks for British forces on the ground – securing routes of supply for
humanitarian aid, clearing unexploded ordnance, especially mines and cluster
bombs, and the protection of aid workers and other NGO personnel. But all that
depends on the "goodwill" of the Northern Alliance, a scarce
commodity at the best of times. So far the Alliance seems willing to acquiesce.
But extending our role into the sphere of "peace-keeping" and
occupying important installations such as the Bagram
airbase depends crucially on our making the case to the various anti-Taliban
forces that a new "Marshall Plan" for their country and taking part
in a broad-based government is a better bet for them than more war. For while
peace-keeping may be possible, peace-making in Afghanistan is not an achievable
aim in the short term.
This in turn requires the Bush administration to
commit itself to a burden it seems surprisingly unwilling to shoulder.
Fortunately, Mr. Blair has one overwhelmingly powerful argument on his side. As
he often points out, the reason why the Taliban regime was able to establish
itself and foster al-Qa'ida was because the West so
abruptly abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviet occupation. After 11 September,
America cannot take the risk of that happening again.
Even if Britain wanted to, it cannot take over all the
functions of government in Afghanistan. Neither can the UN. It may be possible,
just, to do so in Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor but, scarred as they are, none
of the those territories is as badly damaged or as dangerous or as vast as
Afghanistan. We have witnessed at Bagram the limits
of what can be accomplished without a proper framework. Britain can help
rebuild the country and we can encourage the new Afghan government to uphold
the rule of law, respect human rights and to liberate women, and we can have a
UN force that monitors the situation.
In other words, a coalition of the willing carrying
out tasks that are possible is the best that can be hoped for in Afghanistan.
That is a role for our armed forces that we should be proud to see them
perform.
Breve comentario final
Luis Bouza-Brey
Si
se quiere estabilizar Afganistán y Pakistán es imprescindible la formación de
un gobierno equilibrado de amplia base y la participación de todas las etnias
en el proceso de transición y reconstrucción del país. Pero eso no se dará si
la única fuerza militar organizada es la del Frente Unido. Si los pastunes
quedan sometidos a la hegemonía militar y política del Frente Unido y/o
descolgados de las instituciones centrales, la guerra de guerrillas de los
talibán será mucho más potente y duradera, la inestabilidad de Afganistán se
hará permanente y la desestabilización de Pakistán hacia el integrismo
resultará el efecto inmediato. Es mucho lo que está en juego en este punto de
partida.
Por
ello, el respaldo militar de la coalición internacional a un nuevo gobierno de
integración es vital y urgente, y se hace preciso convencer de ello a Rusia,
Irán y el Frente Unido, que no debe asumir ahora un papel que no le
corresponde. La coalición internacional desequilibró la situación a favor
de éste, y no se le puede pedir ahora a aquélla que se retraiga
irresponsablemente. Es necesario finalizar la guerra y mantener el equilibrio
del país, sin que se produzca una hegemonía artificial, falsa e inestable que
vuelva a conducir a Afganistán a la anarquía y a la guerra civil entre
facciones militares y étnicas.
Lo
ideal sería una fuerza multinacional de control bajo la dirección de la Onu ya desde ahora, pero eso da la impresión de que va para
largo, además de que la perduración de la guerra lo hace difícil. Por
ello, la necesidad de un reequilibrio militar es urgente e inmediata, así
como la desmilitarización del país cuando el régimen talibán se derrumbe. EEUU,
Gran Bretaña, Francia, Alemania, Italia, España y, si lo desea, Rusia,
deberían enviar inmediatamente fuerzas militares a Afganistán que ayudaran a
finalizar la guerra, iniciaran la prestación de ayuda humanitaria y llenaran el
vacío de seguridad que el derrumbe del régimen talibán y la heterogeneidad del
Frente Unido van a crear. Una vez estabilizada la situación, debería ser
la fuerza multinacional creada por las Naciones Unidas quien asumiera el
control.
EEUU
debería ser muy consciente de esta necesidad: parece ser la única manera de reenderezar la situación de Afganistán y Pakistán en la
dirección correcta, a fin de crear una estabilidad en esa zona en el medio
plazo.