Should French troops stay in Afghanistan?

Nicolas Sarkozy should announce in the coming days in Bucharest an increase by 1,000 troops of the French military force in Afghanistan.

The idea is bad. The timing is bad.

The war in Afghanistan can no longer be won considering the basis on which it started. Every single aspect of it was communautarized. And the hunt for Al-Qaeda quickly became a hunt for Pashtuns. Targetting a community, as we have seen in Iraq, can only damage the relation between the army and the population. To some extend, the Taliban movement has legitimacy from the people. Rather than making the confusion between Talibans and Al-Qaeda, one should rather adress the reasons for this popular support.

Among those who doubt of the efficiency of the military operations, many US observers and officials (read my previous post on Afghanistan) as well as the Afghan president Hamid Karzai himslef (CBS’ 60 Minutes produced a great story on the subject).

Increasing the military presence in the country is not only dangerous for the troops. It is also costly, at a time the French governement requires a budget diet. And it is a show of support to a Bush administration that even a large majority of the American public no longer supports. It weakens also the European position, while countries like Germany are facing pressures to increase their troop level.

Pledging that ‘the solution is not only military’ is a fake excuse.

Not only cannot the solution be military. But it must be merely Afghan as well. And as free as possible of foreign influence.

Iraqi casualties up again in March

According to figures released by Iraqi ministries, violent deaths toll in Iraq peaked to its highest level since August 2007, to 1,082. Among them, 925 civilians, 103 policemen and 54 soldiers. Meanwhile, the coalition suffered 38 losses during that month, a stable figure since October 2007.

This month may mark a stop in the improvement of the security situation since last summer, when the surge began, simultaneously with a ceasefire declared by Moqtada as-Sadr and the increase in the use of ‘Sons of Iraq’ sunni militiamen.

The recent improvement is not likely to last if the tensions persists between Sadr’s followers and the Iraqi security forces.

The US strategy appears clearly : to reduce as much as possible the exposure of the troops (during my last trip to Iraq, I could see that they prefer sometimes not to hold the field rather than being exposed), and look always for the easy short term solutions. The use of militias is one of them.