Editorial: Nato offering a credible end to Afghan ties

A meeting of Nato members in Lisbon last weekend has given all involved in the Afghanistan war a deadline of sorts. The Alliance aims to complete its task in 2014, when the last of the pacified provinces should be handed back to Afghan control. But the leading allies, the United States and the United Kingdom, have different ideas about their engagement thereafter.

British Prime Minister David Cameron intends British combat forces to be out of Afghanistan by 2015. The United States expects to maintain a combat presence after that date in case of continuing terrorist threats. Thus the Nato meeting has achieved a delicate balance. It has given all contributors to its Afghan mission a reasonable exit while depriving the Taleban of the encouragement they could take from a date for US withdrawal.

If all goes to plan the Afghan Government will have an adequate army and police force to maintain itself against the Taleban and other tribal insurgents while the US maintains military bases there. President Obama said at Lisbon, "One thing I'm pretty confident we will still be doing after 2014 is maintaining a counter-terrorism capability. It is going to be pretty important to us to continue to have platforms to execute those counter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan."

But things are so far from going to plan in Afghanistan at present that it is conceivable the US may need to negotiate its continuing presence with the Taleban, possibly before 2014. The present Afghan Government is struggling to satisfy its allies or its own citizens that it can combat its own corruption let alone the tribalism and religious fundamentalism that infest the country.

The enemy of Western interests is not necessarily the Taleban - sad as its return would be for the rights of women and other liberties in Afghanistan - but its hospitality to the largely Western-educated Arab Islamists who plotted the attacks of 2001. Nine years later much has changed. The US invasion of Iraq played into the Islamists' hands and strengthened their appeal to pan-Islamic nationalism. The revival of the Taleban in Afghanistan was one consequence but a peripheral one. The West's response to its revival needs to be more subtle than seeking outright defeat, which Nato recognises to be unlikely.

The Nato deadline allows the New Zealand Government to draw a clearer sunset on this country's contribution. Some months ago Prime Minister John Key indicated that about a third of the 70-strong Special Air Service contingent serving in Afghanistan could stay beyond the end of their scheduled deployment in March next year.

He wants them home for the Rugby World Cup in September, "not because we anticipate deploying them, but because we just need them here". With an election brewing he might find it difficult to send them back. There is no longer bipartisan support for the mission. Labour leader Phil Goff, who was Defence Minister when it began, now questions the wisdom of risking New Zealanders' lives to maintain a corrupt and ineffective regime in Kabul. "The underlying situation in Afghanistan is more akin to a civil war, involving warlords and complex tribal structures," he said.

Labour, though, supports the continuation of the 140-member provincial reconstruction team in Bamiyan province where New Zealand's only casualty so far, Lieutenant Timothy O'Donnell, was killed in an ambush in August. The team is to be gradually replaced by local civilians.

The US has not formally asked for an extension of New Zealand's fighting commitment and John Key has declined an Australian suggestion to contribute a further 50 soldiers for a joint Anzac force in Uruzgan province. It is easier to get into a war than get out. But if all goes to Nato's plan there is a credible end in sight.