Externally, doubts about the costs in both blood and treasure, are growing in the capitals of the members of International Security Afghanistan Force (ISAF) trying to end the Taliban insurgency. And prompted by the General Mc Chrystal's force review, the Obama administration in United States is undertaking yet another assessment of its Afghanistan strategy. It is doing so, only months after having settled on a new strategic course as a result of the Reidel review.

 

There are reasons for optimism in Afghanistan, but the point that requires emphasis is that the outcome of the war in Afghanistan will almost certainly have a profound impact on the future stability of the whole Southwest Asia region. The stakes are high, and prevailing will not be easy. The military, political and economic challenges to be overcome are formidable. They demand a long term commitment by all those who have a strategic interest in the outcome. This certainly includes Australia and it is the reason the Opposition strongly supports the Rudd Government’s commitment in Afghanistan.

 

But it is with some alarm that I sense some reluctance in the Government’s policy. Compared to some other countries with forces in Afghanistan, the conflict has not been a particularly salient issue in Australian politics. The inattention has no doubt suited the Rudd Government – it is after all a commitment inherited from its predecessor, and is not one over which it is keen to claim ownership. The low visibility of the war has allowed the Prime Minister to concentrate on some of his more cherished international objectives, and leave much of the day to day management of the Australian role to his Defence Minister, whoever that may be on occasion.

 

But understandably, as casualties have begun to mount, the conflict has been attracting greater attention, and public opinion has begun to shift more decisively against Australia’s continuing participation. As a consequence, the Rudd Government seems to be hedging its commitment to the conflict in a way that suggests that it is not entirely convinced of the necessity of our engagement.

 

The Government is a reluctant advocate of our Afghanistan commitment. Its arguments in support of our effort are formal and made without conviction and it seems to take every opportunity to emphasise the limits to Australian policy rather than the importance of prevailing in the conflict. The strategic rationale for Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan needs to be spelled out more clearly, the case made with greater conviction. The Australian people need to know what is at stake, and the Government needs to go into the offensive in seeking to arrest the steady decline in public support for the war. As last week’s comments by the Defence Minister about Australia’s long term engagement illustrated, this Government has become accustomed at being in two places at once with regards to Afghanistan. On one hand, it professes a belief in the importance of the conflict to Australia’s interests, on the other, its commitment to a deeper presence in Afghanistan seems to vacillate in tune with the public opinion. Last week, the Defence Minister expressed some caution about increasing Australia’s troop commitment in Afghanistan. This week he conveys considerable enthusiasm for McChrystal’s assessment of the conflict. 

 

Australia’s presence in Afghanistan is important. It should transcend the 24 hour news cycle mentality which has seemingly preoccupied our political arena since November 2007. I am encouraged by the comments the Defence Minister made yesterday, but I want to stress how important it is that the Government needs to follow through on their operational consequences.

 

Australia has long term strategic interests in the future stability of Afghanistan. Perhaps the strategic imperatives are not as compelling as those of the United States or those of their immediate regional neighbours, but they are sufficiently compelling to justify a substantial investment in their future. 

 

The foundation of Australia’s continuing interests in Afghanistan go back to its membership of the international coalition that intervened in Afghanistan in 2001. Australia has a moral commitment to ensuring that the Taliban does not return to its repressive medieval rule there.

 

But this is not the strongest argument for Australia's contemporary role. There are several more compelling strategic interests underpinning Australia's commitment.

The first is to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a 'safe haven' for terrorism. Certainly al Qaeda's base of operations appears to have shifted to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, but the significant, dangerous and continuing linkages between the Taliban and al Qaeda is a persistent threat to Western interests. We would be taking a massive strategic risk if the ISAF were to leave Afghanistan without a high degree of confidence this alliance has been crushed.

 

Closely related, is the consideration of the impact of the chaos in Afghanistan on Pakistan's stability. Democratic governance in Pakistan is already at grave risk from an internal, strong and increasingly ambitious al Qaeda-backed terrorist movement. Its recent intensified attacks testify to a growing sense of confidence and a bloody determination to destroy an already unstable political order. For reasons that are well understood, the collapse of Pakistan into the hands of al Qaeda would be a strategic disaster. The fall of a democracy, however imperfect, to terrorism would embolden extremism in Asia and elsewhere, to say nothing of the threat that would be generated by Pakistan's nuclear warheads falling into the hands of the terrorists. The chaos and instability in Afghanistan only serves to fuel this risk. As the analyst Stephen Biddle has written, we all have an interest in preventing Afghanistan from aggravating Pakistan's internal problems and magnifying the danger of an al-Qaeda nuclear armed sanctuary there.

 

Australia also has a national interest in Afghanistan borne of its close alliance with United States. For us, being part of the ISAF coalition in Afghanistan is an exercise in alliance maintenance. It is an elemental part of the continuing security burden Australia assumed in the war against Islamic extremism after 9/11.

 It is not an open ended commitment to support US policy, but it is an obligation of alliance that Australia must take seriously. For this reason, the Rudd Government's heightened rhetoric placing apparent constraints on Australia's military contribution to what President Obama has called the 'war of necessity' in Afghanistan, is an alarming thread in defence Australian policy.

 

Third and finally, Australia seeks a peaceful and stable Afghanistan free of Taliban rule because the conflict there has been one of the main reasons so many Afghanis have sought escape and risked all for asylum in other countries. As long as the conflict continues, it will serve as one of the factors undermining the integrity of Australia's border security regime and ultimately the credibility of its successful immigration policy. Remaining committed to the creation of a stable Afghan state is an important way of addressing this policy challenge at source.

 

The results of the McChrystal Review and the pending departure of the Dutch forces from the Oruzgan province, where our forces are deployed, should already be forcing some hard headed thinking about the nature of Australia’s continued commitment to Afghanistan. The policy choices available to the Government are as wide ranging as they are complex and no one should think there can be any easy decisions.

 

First, once the McChrystal Review is completed, Australia should conduct its own comprehensive review of its Afghanistan policy. It should be a whole of Government exercise drawing-in all of the agencies with interests in Afghanistan and should identify policy initiatives that strongly support and reinforce the strategic objectives of the US and its NATO allies there. If further troop contributions are called for, the Australian Government should give serious consideration to the matter. It should not pre-emptively rule it out as it is now at times doing.

 

Once the review is completed and our commitments have been decided, the Government needs to step up its efforts to sell the policy at home. As it stands, the Rudd Government’s hesitation to take ownership of this conflict necessarily means that it cannot expect to sustain the public support for a war which has already killed and wounded so many brave Australians.

 

And if ‘creative middle power diplomacy’ actually means anything, the Government should use its diplomatic energies to explore the diplomatic route to assisting a settlement in Afghanistan. Regionally, a more urgent task exists in trying to bring about some accommodation of the differences between Pakistan and India. These differences are helping to frustrate efforts to confront effectively the insurgencies in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

 

Arguing, as this Government is often inclined to do, that Afghanistan is NATO’s problem and we can or should be, only a subsidiary player in the conflict may serve the Prime Minister’s domestic political agenda, but it is highly dubious strategic policy. As President Obama has remarked in relation to America’s commitment to Afghanistan, ‘you don’t muddle through the central front on terror.’ And neither should Australia.