Afghanistan: Danger, builders at work
A bungled liberal intervention is exacting its true price, a return to a pungent strain of isolationism
When Barack Obama ordered the surge of 30,000 troops into Afghanistan, he said he was determined to finish the job. That was in December 2009, when Osama bin Laden was alive, the sovereign debt crisis had yet to erupt and America was not as panicked as it is today by the size of the deficit it is running. Sixteen months on, all three fundaments have changed, as Mr Obama announced a drawdown of 10,000 troops this year and 23,000 next summer. War fatigue is widespread. The latest Republican to declare that he is seeking the party's nomination, Jon Huntsman, asked this week what America had achieved out of a war that had lasted nine years and 50 days, and cost (along with Iraq) well over $1 trillion. Why was America building Kandahar and neglecting Kansas City? Mr Huntsman got his answer when Mr Obama declared: "America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home."
From a crass attempt to "build democracy" in Kabul as some form of Maginot line against terrorism, the pendulum has swung back, and now it is once more acceptable to question the cost and purpose of the war and wrap yourself in the stars and stripes. A bungled liberal intervention is exacting its true price, a return to a pungent strain of isolationism. Neither democracy promotion nor its opposite, a world power in full retreat, show much regard for the people who have taken the brunt of these vacillations, the Afghans themselves. So it is pertinent to ask in what sense the job has been finished. Granted, the job description itself has been changed. No one is talking any more of building the capacity of the Afghan state. An army is the most that is being aspired to. In a debate which is dominated by numbers, there is little talk of strategy or policy. America's singular role in the course of human events, as the president grandiosely put it on Wednesday night, amounts to what in Afghanistan? An incorruptible president, democratic institutions, reliable elections, tolerable governance? All still decades away.
In ordering the surge Mr Obama set himself three objectives; attacking al-Qaida, reversing the Taliban's momentum, and training Afghan security forces. If al-Qaida is indeed on the path to defeat after the killing of Bin Laden in Pakistan, it was proof not only that the original response to 9/11 should have been counter-terrorist not counter-insurgent, but that for most of the last 10 years we have been fighting the wrong enemy in the wrong country. On the second of those objectives, the Taliban's momentum has been checked in the south, but it has been displaced, not defeated. And the all-but-public opposition of the outgoing commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, to the scale and speed of the drawdown is testament to a lack of faith in the policy he promoted. Only one of his three counterinsurgency aims has worked. Foreign troops can clear, but they can't yet hold, still less build. So Kandahar's relative peace is Jawzjan province's war in the north. Arguably, the insurgency is now stronger still in the east, than it is in the south, which is why General Petraeus wanted to reinvest the bulk of the 30,000 troops in the east next year.
What is stopping the generals from continuing to dictate the policy in the White House is not the resistance troops encounter from the Taliban, but the resistance a war in its 11th year is getting at home. The same happened in Vietnam. When Republican presidential candidates are calling for withdrawal, you know the game is up. If the mission continues, but closer to the one that Vice-President Joseph Biden argued for 18 months ago, it will be difficult to explain to the Afghans what is in this for them. The conditions in which a ceasefire could be negotiated with the various Taliban groups are far off. The potential for destablising Pakistan remains high. If this is counts as job done, Mr Obama is in the wrong profession.
From a crass attempt to "build democracy" in Kabul as some form of Maginot line against terrorism, the pendulum has swung back, and now it is once more acceptable to question the cost and purpose of the war and wrap yourself in the stars and stripes. A bungled liberal intervention is exacting its true price, a return to a pungent strain of isolationism. Neither democracy promotion nor its opposite, a world power in full retreat, show much regard for the people who have taken the brunt of these vacillations, the Afghans themselves. So it is pertinent to ask in what sense the job has been finished. Granted, the job description itself has been changed. No one is talking any more of building the capacity of the Afghan state. An army is the most that is being aspired to. In a debate which is dominated by numbers, there is little talk of strategy or policy. America's singular role in the course of human events, as the president grandiosely put it on Wednesday night, amounts to what in Afghanistan? An incorruptible president, democratic institutions, reliable elections, tolerable governance? All still decades away.
In ordering the surge Mr Obama set himself three objectives; attacking al-Qaida, reversing the Taliban's momentum, and training Afghan security forces. If al-Qaida is indeed on the path to defeat after the killing of Bin Laden in Pakistan, it was proof not only that the original response to 9/11 should have been counter-terrorist not counter-insurgent, but that for most of the last 10 years we have been fighting the wrong enemy in the wrong country. On the second of those objectives, the Taliban's momentum has been checked in the south, but it has been displaced, not defeated. And the all-but-public opposition of the outgoing commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, to the scale and speed of the drawdown is testament to a lack of faith in the policy he promoted. Only one of his three counterinsurgency aims has worked. Foreign troops can clear, but they can't yet hold, still less build. So Kandahar's relative peace is Jawzjan province's war in the north. Arguably, the insurgency is now stronger still in the east, than it is in the south, which is why General Petraeus wanted to reinvest the bulk of the 30,000 troops in the east next year.
What is stopping the generals from continuing to dictate the policy in the White House is not the resistance troops encounter from the Taliban, but the resistance a war in its 11th year is getting at home. The same happened in Vietnam. When Republican presidential candidates are calling for withdrawal, you know the game is up. If the mission continues, but closer to the one that Vice-President Joseph Biden argued for 18 months ago, it will be difficult to explain to the Afghans what is in this for them. The conditions in which a ceasefire could be negotiated with the various Taliban groups are far off. The potential for destablising Pakistan remains high. If this is counts as job done, Mr Obama is in the wrong profession.
Nick Clegg and the banks: Wrong time, wrong place, wrong idea
A better solution would be to hold on to these banks and use them to foster a sustainable recovery
It is one of the curious features of British politics that government ministers on a worthy-but-dull trip to a faraway place often try to get a few juicy headlines by sounding off about an issue that's big back home but nowhere near their agenda. So it appears to be with Nick Clegg this week, because the deputy prime minister has used a round of trade negotiations in Rio de Janeiro to brief the press not about tariffs or a memorandum of understanding, but the British banking system. Mr Clegg certainly made a satisfactory splash with his proposal to give away shares in the nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds to every adult. But the idea is a terrible one, and terribly confused.
Before coming on to the whys and wherefores, however, it is worth making one note about the politics. Mr Clegg has made his intervention just days after George Osborne made it clear that he had his own plans for the nationalised banks. Speaking at Mansion House last week, the chancellor made clear that he wanted to sell the state-owned Northern Rock to any willing bidder. That approach is diametrically opposed to Mr Clegg's vision of freely scattering bank shares like confetti on to the heads of the British public. (See also Vince Cable's growling this week at company directors on what he called "actually outrageous" salaries, a phrase unlikely ever to be used by his old rival Mr Osborne). The Liberal Democrat leader is obviously signalling that he is independent from his senior coalition partners.
Which would be all to the good, were Mr Clegg's position at all attractive. But it is not. In doling out stock willy-nilly, the Lib Dem is failing either to raise much-needed cash for the Treasury by selling these state shares, or to use the government's stake in these high-street titans to reform the banking industry. To miss one or other of these objectives may be inevitable, to miss both is surely hapless. Mr Clegg describes his freebie as "psychologically immensely important" – a pretty flimsy pretext to forgo tens of billions of pounds through a sale. He has also learned nothing from the Russian privatisations of the 90s, in which citizens flogged their free shares for a few roubles to a nascent oligarchy.
A better solution would be to hold on to these banks and use them to foster a sustainable recovery. RBS and Lloyds should be directed to lend to strategically important regions and industries that will otherwise be credit-starved. Difficult? Yes. Complicated? Undoubtedly. But it is time for ministers to think much bigger about Britain's banking system, rather than grab easy headlines. Let us hope Mr Clegg devotes the rest of his week to fostering trade with Brazil – the ostensible purpose of his trip.
Before coming on to the whys and wherefores, however, it is worth making one note about the politics. Mr Clegg has made his intervention just days after George Osborne made it clear that he had his own plans for the nationalised banks. Speaking at Mansion House last week, the chancellor made clear that he wanted to sell the state-owned Northern Rock to any willing bidder. That approach is diametrically opposed to Mr Clegg's vision of freely scattering bank shares like confetti on to the heads of the British public. (See also Vince Cable's growling this week at company directors on what he called "actually outrageous" salaries, a phrase unlikely ever to be used by his old rival Mr Osborne). The Liberal Democrat leader is obviously signalling that he is independent from his senior coalition partners.
Which would be all to the good, were Mr Clegg's position at all attractive. But it is not. In doling out stock willy-nilly, the Lib Dem is failing either to raise much-needed cash for the Treasury by selling these state shares, or to use the government's stake in these high-street titans to reform the banking industry. To miss one or other of these objectives may be inevitable, to miss both is surely hapless. Mr Clegg describes his freebie as "psychologically immensely important" – a pretty flimsy pretext to forgo tens of billions of pounds through a sale. He has also learned nothing from the Russian privatisations of the 90s, in which citizens flogged their free shares for a few roubles to a nascent oligarchy.
A better solution would be to hold on to these banks and use them to foster a sustainable recovery. RBS and Lloyds should be directed to lend to strategically important regions and industries that will otherwise be credit-starved. Difficult? Yes. Complicated? Undoubtedly. But it is time for ministers to think much bigger about Britain's banking system, rather than grab easy headlines. Let us hope Mr Clegg devotes the rest of his week to fostering trade with Brazil – the ostensible purpose of his trip.
In praise of … live streamed opera
No need for black tie, no need to picnic: opera for everybody, that old counterintuitive idea, is almost here
Today is Johannistag – and if you don't know what that signifies, you have probably never seen Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Richard Wagner's much-discussed opera contains (to some ears) some of the most beautiful music ever written for the stage; but opera, however much performed, is by definition also exclusive. Recordings have made music available to anyone at any time, but they can lack the spontaneity that gives performance art its spark. Hence perhaps the growing enthusiasm for live relays of opera (plays too, the National Theatre has found). Matinee performances from New York's Metropolitan Opera are now shown in real time in cinemas around the world. Time differences mean an afternoon in America is perfect for early evening in cinemas from Aberdeen to Yeovil. London's Royal Opera House now does much the same: if you are reading this in Sydney, you can see last night's performance of Macbeth, as live on screen, next week. Competing for a cinematic song prize this weekend is Glyndebourne's much-praised production of Meistersinger. It will be shown live from 2.45pm on Sunday in Picturehouse cinemas and London's Science Museum, and streamed online on the Guardian website, where it will be available on demand for a week. No need for black tie, no need to picnic or join a 10-year wait for festival membership. Johannistag – St John's day – celebrated in the opera will just have passed, but opera for everybody, that old counterintuitive ambition, is almost here.
0 comments:
Post a Comment