Afghan Foreign Minister Insists that Afghan Public Still Supports International Military Presence

For years, the most reassuring thing about the war in Afghanistan, to my mind, was that the Afghan public seemed strongly supportive of the American presence there. That was a pointed contrast to the situation in Iraq, where for years we’ve been unwelcome interlopers. Recently, though, that seems to not be the case. My colleague Ben Armbruster and I got a chance to talk with Rangin Dadfar Spanta, Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, earlier today and Ben asked him about this. His reply was basically to say that Afghans in fact still do support the international military presence:

As Ben notes, this really does seem at odds with the survey data:

A recent ABC/BBC/ARD poll released earlier this month found that Afghans’ support of U.S. and NATO forces’ efforts in that nation is tumbling. Just 47 percent said they had a favorable view of the United States, down from 83 percent in 2005. Only 37 percent said that most people in their area support NATO and the International Security Assistance Force; 67 percent supported ISAF in 2006.

I think you could say that we’re within the margin of error here. The statistical margin of error, at least. But what’s clear is that our operational margin of error is extraordinarily narrow. That’s why there’s an urgent need to both reduce the number of civilian casualties we’re inflicting and reduce the number of civilian casualties that anti-government forces are able to inflict. My read on the situation is that the best way to achieve that in the short run is through an increase in the number of boots on the ground—both American and, hopefully, foreign. But more troops doesn’t achieve that result automatically, you need better strategy. And if we don’t start doing better very quickly, we risk slipping past the point where it’s possible for our presence to be effective at all.