Thank you very much for inviting me to give testimony before this committee.
You have my CV before you, I think. I would like to draw your attention in particular to my work over the past several years in training NATO officers, specifically the command group, for peace support and crisis stabilization operations, including for Afghanistan. My role in these training exercises as the special representative of the UN Secretary General is to help foster unity of effort and close cooperation between the military mission and the UN political mission, so that the military effort supports the overarching peace process. This kind of training is an effort NATO has been involved in for many years now.
I would like to situate my remarks today in the context of what has come before. I am a member of the Afghanistan Reference Group, although I'm here speaking in my personal capacity. I helped prepare the document that formed the basis for the presentations last November by Stefan Lehmeier of the Peace Operations Working Group of the NGO network Peacebuild, which I chair; and by Gerry Ohlsen, of the Group of 78, of which I am a past president. I wish also to associate myself with the testimony of Graeme MacQueen of McMaster University and, in the new round of hearings now under way, of Seddiq Weera of the Afghanistan Ministry of Education, and before that, of McMaster University. Of course, that preliminary report very well summarizes the testimony I'm referring to.
Stefan Lehmeier, Graeme MacQueen, Gerry Ohlsen, and Seddiq Weera have all come before you, as I do, asserting that there is an urgent need for a reorientation of the international focus in Afghanistan from the failing counter-insurgency campaign to the development of a comprehensive, multi-dimensional peace process based on UN best practices in diplomatic peacemaking—ideally led by a high-level UN envoy of the stature of Lakhdar Brahimi, someone acceptable to all sides of the conflict and with deep knowledge and understanding of the region and of the craft of negotiation.
Professor Graeme MacQueen, when he was here, outlined some ideas already tested on the ground in Afghanistan on engendering local dialogues as the first step toward a more formal negotiating process. Seddiq Weera talked about his discussions with many disaffected Afghan fighters, warlords, drug lords, and Taliban commanders, their willingness to negotiate—not all of them, of course, but many of them—and their desire for “peace with honour”. He also talked about the impossibility of the Karzai government—however much it may want to—ever making real progress on good governance when its primary concern has to be watching its back, as the Taliban and other armed forces aligned with them make seemingly inexorable gains in their armed battle for control of Afghanistan. I associate myself fully with these remarks, which are on the record before this committee in the first part of its hearings.
The urgency is even greater now as the security situation, which has steadily deteriorated since the end of 2001, continues to deteriorate further, to the extent that the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, General James Jones, in a new report for the Atlantic Council, has called the military situation in Afghanistan a “strategic stalemate” now. Some other analysts would go further and say the momentum is now clearly with the insurgents.
Since your preliminary report was released, we have heard from the Manley panel. I would draw the committee's attention to some key insights in the narrative of the Manley report, which are fully in line with the analysis offered by ARG members, and also by Seddiq Weera.
The deteriorating security situation is noted on page 12 of the report. There is also the recognition on page 17 that the current fighting is a continuation of the 30-year civil war, and an acknowledgement on that same page of the need for an eventual political reconciliation and for Canada to support efforts to that end.
On page 27 there is a recognition of the key role of regional actors and the devilish complexity of the regional situation. I have a quote in my paper from the Manley report on that regional situation, but in the interests of time, I won't go into it.
On page 33 of the report there is a call for Canada to press for a “comprehensive political-military strategy and for more coherent leadership” of the international effort.
Having concluded that more of the same will lead to failure in Afghanistan, the report then sets out a series of specific recommendations. In addition to those recommendations that everyone has been focusing on in the media relating to more troops from NATO and more medium-lift helicopters, the report recommends a more robust Canadian diplomatic position, including a heightened focus on the regional dimension, and Canadian support for the early appointment of a high-level civilian representative of the UN Secretary General is urged.
But when the precise wording of these recommendations is considered, one finds they do not actually include anything about Canada seeking support from within NATO, and the international community more broadly, for a new political framework for Afghanistan with diplomatic peacemaking at its heart. The role of the new UN special envoy is to be specifically focused on ensuring “greater coherence in the civilian and military effort”, which surely is secondary to the development of a winning political strategy around which to align the diverse array of international actors in Afghanistan.
As for the regional dimension, here is the recommendation: “Forceful representations with Afghanistan's neighbours, in particular with Pakistan, to reduce the risks posed to regional stability and security by recent developments in that country”.
No country could possibly have been more forceful in its representations to Pakistan than the United States in seeking to get Pakistan to rein in the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the border areas. It didn't work. Exhortations, no matter how forceful, must be buttressed with international support for processes that address the deep democratic deficit that is at the roots of Pakistani insecurity in the border areas. The results of the recent elections in Pakistan offer a new opening to begin to do this, given the stated desire of the winners of that election to pursue political dialogue with disaffected local leaders in the border area.
What about the strategic review of Afghanistan policy now ongoing in NATO, the results of which will be announced at the Bucharest summit in April? The Manley report is silent on any inputs by Canada to this process other than to push for greater military-civilian coherence, and focuses instead on the idea that the Canadian government should concentrate its efforts on getting NATO to agree to an additional thousand soldiers as a condition for Canada's continued military participation in the south.
It seems to me that Canada should be using its very hard-won influence within NATO, literally purchased with the blood of Canadian soldiers, to seek to secure the support of the alliance's 26 members—comprising much of the key donor community in Afghanistan as well as the troop-contributing nations—for what is most urgently needed: a new overarching political framework for international engagement in Afghanistan with much more emphasis on creating the conditions for a comprehensive peace process.
I believe that there is already a lot of support for this approach, not least within those NATO countries opposed to their forces' participating in the counter-insurgency military effort. Eminent persons, like Lakhdar Brahimi, who was himself a special representative of the Secretary General in Afghanistan in the period of the Bonn process, have spoken out about the urgent need for diplomatic peacemaking. What is lacking is a country willing to take a leadership role within NATO to secure agreement on this new approach.
In these opening remarks, I have not addressed the revised motion before Parliament to extend Canada's military mission in Afghanistan. I would be pleased to take questions on that important topic. It follows from my opening comments, however, that a reorientation of the military mission alone is, in effect, putting the cart of military support before the horse of a winning political strategy to bring a sustainable peace to Afghanistan.
Thank you very much.