Dutch
troops on patrol in Uruzgan Province last year. The government
of The Netherlands has collapsed
over the issue of providing troops to
NATO for Afghanistan. The
ramifications are only beginning to emerge.
de Volkskrant, The
Netherlands
Afghanistan
Pullout Damages Dutch Reputation - and President Obama
"This is
an especially painful development for the White House. ... This reinforces the
feeling in the United States that the Obama Administration has an insufficient
grip on the Afghanistan issue. Without doubt, critics of the president,
especially those on the right, are sharpening their knives."
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende: His government, which collapsed over the issue of deploying forces to Afghanistan, has told NATO that the 1,600 troops there now are coming home in August.
No one should
fear the now inevitable withdrawal of The Netherlands from UruzganProvince, or
the uncertainty of its presence anywhere else in Afghanistan. It's a withdrawal
that has suddenly become the laughingstock of NATO and the international
community. But the credit earned with its more than proportional contribution over
recent years won’t evaporate immediately. Everywhere, there is a general
understanding that the mission is a heavy burden on Dutch forces and that its
role as the lead nation in Uruzgan cannot be sustained.
That doesn't mean
that one can ignore the damaged reputation that The Netherlands now suffers thanks to the
unseemly events regarding its decision on whether to stay in Uruzgan. The same applies to the loss of
influence that will certainly occur. But it would also be wrong to believe that
this is just a footnote in the Afghan saga. To downplay the Dutch role on the
world stage is as misguided as the idea that we have a special role to fulfill as
an international guide.
Both NATO and
Washington were under the clear expectation that The Netherlands would be
willing to take on at least a small role in Uruzgan until
mid-2011, with a focus on training Afghan soldiers and police. This had less to
do with any whisperings by Foreign Minister Verhagen than with the new strategy
outlined last year by President Obama.
It's a strategy
that provides for the temporary deployment of extra troops, but also a
timetable for the gradual reduction of foreign forces in Afghanistan. It's also
a strategy that puts much more emphasis on diplomacy and reconstruction than in
the past, and is therefore more consistent with the approach propagated by The
Netherlands from the very beginning. All NATO countries have rallied behind it,
which gave the Obama Administration some leverage for asking the allies, in the
wake of the American reinforcements, to send an additional 10,000 troops to
Afghanistan.
And only with
great difficulty did NATO gather that number.
With its
rejection of Brussels' request to play a reduced role in Uruzgan
until mid-2011, The Netherlands is moving in the opposite direction. This isn't
exactly an encouragement for other countries to provide added forces.
This is an especially
painful development for the White House. Prime Minister Balkenende
touched on this sore spot on Sunday, when he recalled that in 2007, President
Bush succeeded in persuading The Hague, including the [ruling] Dutch Labor
Party, to agree to an open-ended extension of its military mission in Uruzgan. Meanwhile, President Obama is getting nothing for
his request, which is much more limited in both time and scope.
The tragic
incident in the border area of Urugzan, where NATO aircraft
bombed civilians that were mistaken for Taliban fighters, underscores the precarious
nature of the military operation in Afghanistan. The alliance could have done
without such a blunder after a similar incident in Kunduz
five months ago. Combined with the abandonment by The Netherlands, it
reinforces the feeling in the United States that the Obama Administration has
an insufficient grip on the Afghanistan issue. Without doubt, critics of the
president, especially those on the right, are sharpening their knives.
