Afghanistan deaths underscore bloody war

Very substantial drug production in Afghanistan represents a special challenge. Here useful lessons are provided by the Nixon administration. President Richard Nixon and associates creatively used product licensing to encourage Turkish farmers to sell crops to pharmaceutical companies for legal medicinal purposes. Drug production moved elsewhere, including Afghanistan, but illegal supplies from Turkey dried up. Special South Asia Envoy Richard Holbrooke has indicated explicit interest in applying this same imaginative approach to Afghanistan.

Third, the Taliban inspires great fear but not support among the wider population. This contrasts markedly with success of the revolutionary insurgent organizations during the French and American Vietnam wars. Despite the global engagement of the U.S. military, most of our military conflicts since World War II have involved Asia, confirming Zbigniew Brzezinski's emphasis years ago on an emerging “Arc of Crisis” reaching from Southeast Asia to Southwest Asia.

Fourth, recent national elections represent tremendous progress in feudal and decentralized Afghan society. In particular, the new participation of women is extremely important. Other developing nations demonstrate dramatically that direct involvement of women as citizens, voters and candidates brings a wealth of positive changes.

We are still a long way from defeat in Afghanistan.

Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College in Wisconsin and author of “After the Cold War” (NYU Press and Macmillan/Palgrave). He can be reached at acyr@carthage.edu.

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