President Karzai was in London this past weekend with Prime Minister Cameron signing the Enduring Strategic Partnership between the UK and Afghanistan. The Partnership is a quick read – only four sides of paper – but it lays out the fundamentals of the UK’s relationship with the Afghan people for the foreseeable future. That’s important not just because of the content, but because of the intent – the UK, like most of the ISAF allies will work with Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. Yes, we plan to end our military mission in Afghanistan by 2014, but we don’t intend to be “out” of Afghanistan as substantial security, governance, economic and social and cultural links will remain. As a poor developing nation in a challenging neighbourhood, they will continue to need their friends. And we will continue to need them. If we are to tackle the flow of heroin from Afghanistan to the UK, and to counter the terrorist threat from the region and the risk domestic radicalisation, we need partners.
President Karzai was gracious in acknowledging that commitment, past and present: “May I convey to the people of Britain the gratitude of the Afghan people for all that Britain has offered Afghanistan, for having been ready to sacrifice, and having been ready to share hard earned taxpayers’ money with Afghanistan for the benefit of the Afghan life.” As a British taxpayer, I appreciate him saying that – the economy is tough, the choices for governments are hard but ultimately we, and our 48 ISAF allies, have judged the commitment worth it. What we now need is to pull the plan together for the next 10 plus years: use the NATO Chicago conference to get the military side right, including the funding of the Afghan security forces; and the discussions leading to, and beyond the Tokyo donors’ conference to make sure we are offering Afghanistan the development support it needs. Beyond all that we need to make sure the Afghans are leading the way.