Success in Afghanistan requires firm commitment: Haidari

A top Afghan diplomat in Washington on Monday told a group of international spy chiefs that the success in his country required a firm recommitment to a strategic partnership with the post-election Afghan government.

There is no choice but to win in Afghanistan, because failing in our country will not only give the Taliban a strategic victory and thus embolden them to take on another mission but also put under serious question the very credibility of NATO as a unified and responsible collective security institution in the post-Cold War era where security threats no longer come from states but from non-state transnational actors, Ashraf Haidari, the Political Counselor at the Afghan Embassy in the US, said.

Delivering a major lecture to a group of international spy chiefs at the National Defense Intelligence College, on Securing Afghanistan: Challenges and Opportunities Ashraf the deteriorating security and weak governance in Afghanistan had been cumulative, because of a lack of international security and reconstruction aid resources to address the countrys protracted problems from the very beginning.

Until just last year, Afghanistan has been the recipient of the least international security and development aid per capita, compared to all other recent post-conflict countriesincluding Bosnia, Cambodia, East Timor, Iraq, and others, said Haidari in the rare speech of an Afghan diplomat at the National Defense Intelligence College.

Noting that the Iraq war effectively shortchanged the urgent priority of restoring state institutions in Afghanistan, he said: Lets remember that the Bonn Agreement only gave Afghanistan a Government on the paper, not the actual state capacity that any country needs to run its basic domestic affairs.

Haidari said the international community continues to lack a comprehensive state-building strategy for Afghanistan where they have spent tax payers monies through NGOs and contractors related to the donor countries.

That is why our state institutions are either too weak or completely absent in various parts of Afghanistan where the Taliban have increasingly regained influence and power, he said.

We have a very clear mission in Afghanistan with good strategiesincluding General McChrystals recent assessmentto win the peace in the country, with overwhelming Afghan support. But our nation-partners must commit the will needed to succeed in this joint endeavor for global peace and security. Haidari concluded.