Patrick Mercer: Lessons of past vital to Afghan success

ONE of President Obama's advisers has told the world recently that as far as the Allied offensive in Afghanistan is concerned, "It's not about the battle, it's about the postlude". In other words, the fighting is only a means to an end: the important bit is how the country both recovers and starts to prosper once the bullets have ceased to fly.

But isn't that a statement of the obvious? Hasn't the collective wisdom been since at least 1945 – and the Marshall Plan that was designed to ensure that Germany didn't become what we would now call a failed state once she had been defeated militarily – that such reconstruction work is central to any post-campaign period?

And if it is so obvious, why didn't it happen in Iraq and what lessons can this operation draw from Panther's Claw, the offensive last summer?

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We've been in Afghanistan for nine years, and the question has to be asked whether we're any closer to delivering a stable situation now than when we started.

First, I believe that any use of the word Afghanistan without Pakistan being mentioned in the same breath is a mistake.

The war the Allies are fighting is a regional one that stretches from the borders of Iran right the way up to Russian – both of which, it should be noted, are nuclear-tipped states.

The stakes are much higher than simply preventing Afghanistan slipping back into the chaos that allowed al-Qaida to flourish there and for elements of the 9/11 plot to be hatched there. No, bin Laden and his confederates would love to get their hands on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal while fomenting war between that state and India.

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So, if our involvement in Afghanistan is viewed through this prism, it can be seen that timetables for troop surges and subsequent withdrawals depend not just on what we do to the Taliban and they to us on the Hindu Kush, but on events on a much wider stage.

To talk about timelines for drawdown, as both President Obama and Prime Minister Gordon Brown have done, owes more to cynical party politics than to the desire to win a whole campaign.

What is the point, therefore, of Operation Moshtarak? First, it is a coalition-wide operation mounted in conjunction with Pakistani forces on their side of the border. Its mission is to destroy the Taliban hold on Marjah – one of the strongpoints for which enough Allied firepower has never been assembled before for it to be stormed.

Also, Nad'e Ali, another of the enemy's redoubts, is being attacked simultaneously. If our enemies are thrown out of these areas and then – and here's the rub – enough troops, police and reconstruction workers are dedicated to keeping them out and rebuilding the place, it will have been a great success. But if we are too weak, or the Afghan government lacks the resolve to put enough of its own people there – well , the conclusion is obvious.

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Secondly, why was the operation broadcast so publicly before its launch? That goes against every military maxim: secrecy is normally paramount.

But, in this case, commanders were stuck with political reality, for I cannot think of a strategic reinforcement that has ever been so widely known about as Obama's surge, which was signalled in great detail almost three months before it happened. Even the meanest intelligence would have concluded that troops were not going to arrive and then do nothing, and having been told by the White House that southern areas were going to be their main effort, Marjah and Nad'e Ali were going to be in the frame.

So, stuck with this, the tactics have been, I suggest, both intelligent and practical.

By telling the Afghan people what was likely to occur, by striking faster than the Taliban could react and by assaulting during winter months when many of the local and foreign fighters have hung up their AKs for a while, commanders seem to have turned a disadvantage into an advantage.

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Sadly, of course, 12 civilians have now been killed by stray munitions. This is particularly tragic when the Allies made so much of their efforts to minimise such accidents.

It's no good talking about "collateral damage" and the "fog of war" when President Karzai himself has been so vociferous about the level of civilian casualties the Allies cause, and the Taliban are so good at exploiting such mistakes. It's upon such tragedies as this that the whole, strategic success of the operation could hang.

We've been told by Bob Ainsworth, the Secretary of State for Defence, that we must expect heavy military casualties during the course of

the operation.

While, mercifully, there have been few so far and the enemy seems largely to have melted away, there is still time for fierce fighting and, as the MoD's spokesman, Maj Gen Gordon Messenger, said, "This has been the easy bit – the challenge is to provide security that allows the Afghans to provide for their own people".

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And the General is right. If we are not to have another decade of blood-letting in this country, if our leaders are going to be able to bring our young warriors home, it's crucial that we get this right and allow – and require – a sovereign government to rule its own people.

But, that will never happen so long as we ignore the lessons of the past and allow politicians to dictate strategy and tactics to the soldiers.

Patrick Mercer is MP for Newark and a former soldier. He is now chairman of the Counter-Terrorism Sub-Committee in the House of Commons.

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