Australia to stand by US in Afghanistan
Updated
Australia has given the United Sates the assurance that it will stand by America in Afghanistan even though the war there is unpopular. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made the commitment in talks with President Barack Obama in Washington. The assurance comes as the US president outlined his own new Afghan strategy.
Presenter: Kanaha Sabapathy
Speaker: Barack Obama, US President; Kevin Rudd, Australian Prime Minister; Richard Holbrooke, US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan; Raspal Khosa, research fellow, Australian Strategic Policy Institute
- Listen:
- Windows Media
BARACK OBAMA: The threat of terrorist attacks from Al Qaeda and their affiliates is not a threat that's gone away, we have to take it seriously. Obviously the United States - what's been burned into our memories, the events of 9/11 - but I think the Australian people remember what happened in Bali.
KANAHA SABAPATHY: President Barack Obama stressing why US allies should continue to support Washington in its new strategy in Afghanistan. In response, this is what Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had to say.
KEVIN RUDD: Now this war is increasingly unpopular, that's just the truth of it. We are there as a strong, reliable ally of the United States.
KANAHA SABAPATHY: One of the first things that President Obama signed on taking office was to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan. He talked about a new strategy that is population centric. Raspal Khosa, research fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, explains.
RASPAL KHOSA: A more troop-intensive counter-insurgency strategy that will draw on lessons from Iraq and call for more boots on the ground - that's Coalition soldiers and Afghan national security forces to provide security to the civilian population and it's moving away from the more enemy-centric approach which was previously taken. That has not worked and as the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Admiral Mullen said, nor does it address the problem of the safe havens in Pakistan.
KANAHA SABAPATHY: In fact, there seems to be a realisation in Washington that the insurgency in Afghanistan cannot be dealt with independently of the problems along the border with Pakistan. US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke made this very clear during a recent visit to the region.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: You could have the greatest government on earth in Kabul and if the situation in the Western tribal areas of Pakistan were as it is today, you still wouldn't have stability in Afghanistan. You cannot separate Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the past the United States Government stove-piped - they had an Afghan policy and a Pakistan policy. We have to integrate the two.
KANAHA SABAPATHY: Raspal Khosa agrees.
RASPAL KHOSA: It is an insurgency of the Pashtun people, the Taliban have made appeals to Pashtun nationalism and the Pashtun people live on either side of the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And it's a problem that needs to be addressed on both sides of the border.
KANAHA SABAPATHY: But this is not going to be easy. Pakistan, as a sovereign nation, will jealously guard its independence and in recent times has tried to deal with its insurgency problem by negotiating with the Taliban. Raspal Khosa says negotiations are essential, but the Pakistan approach was not the best.
RASPAL KHOSA: Pakistan's approach is problematic. I mean, many critics have said it's more like accommodation where territory has really been given to insurgents after they've engaged in anti-state operations. I mean one just has to look at what's going on in the Swat Valley, for example. But at the moment the insurgents aren't in the mood to talk, hence the United States is sending in additional combat forces to actually put pressure on them to come to the bargaining table.
KANAHA SABAPATHY: Whether more troops on the ground will encourage the Taliban to come to the negotiating table is yet to be seen. While the US and its allies need to ponder on exit strategies, the Taliban as the incumbents can sit it out and are prepared to continue the war of political attrition. Raspal Khosa says what is needed now is for the West to review how it deals with the factions within Afghanistan.
RASPAL KHOSA: What we really walked into in 2001 was an Afghan civil war and we backed the weaker side, the Northern alliance, that had been hemmed into the Panjshir Valley. And and the reality was that the Taliban is a Pashtun organisation that held sway over most of the country. Now a lot of Pashtun leadership was left out of the post-Taliban political dispensation and the result of that is we have a protracted insurgency. So the issue has to be how do you reconcile these groups that are disaffected, how do you bring them back into the power structure.
