Kabul Conference Sets Lofty Goals

Big international conferences on Afghanistan have become an annual, and more recently a biannual, ritual. They mostly follow the same script. Afghanistan’s international backers, led by the United States, pledge more money and steadfast backing for the beleaguered government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. (It has received some $29 billion in aid over the past nine years.) In return, the president vows to fight the Taliban harder, spend international aid money more wisely, end corruption, and promote good governance in order to win the embattled population over to his side.

This week’s conference, the ninth since the overthrow of the Taliban in late 2001, was envisioned to be different. Indeed there was an element of desperation about it. The Taliban seemingly has the momentum, steadily expanding the insurgency from the south and east to the west and north. U.S. and NATO casualties have been rising (June was the deadliest month with 60 American and another 40 NATO soldiers killed). And support for the war is dwindling in the U.S. and at rock bottom in Europe. So both Karzai and the international community knew they had to make this conference a watershed moment. They had to create a new narrative telling a more positive story, showing that there is momentum on the coalition’s side, that all is not bleak, that there is, in Vietnam War terminology, a light at the end of the tunnel.