MichaelMoore.com

U.S. Pushes Afghan Plan In The Hague This Week

After unveiling its strategy review for Afghanistan, the U.S. administration this week starts selling it in earnest to the rest of the world at a conference in the Netherlands.

Tuesday's event in The Hague will include 73 nations and 11 international organizations, as well as nonprofit observers. The Dutch hosts say it isn't designed either as a donor conference or a troop-pledging exercise, but to secure "political support" for a renewed international effort to stabilize Afghanistan.

"More than anything else, this will be an opportunity [for the U.S.] to present the outcome of their review," said a spokeswoman for Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign-policy chief.

The new U.S. strategy calls for more U.S. troops in Afghanistan to go after the Taliban and Al Qaeda but also to help the Afghan government root out the opium trade, build up its army and strengthen its reach in the provinces. The strategy, announced on Friday, won widespread support from Democrats and Republicans.

Democratic congressional leaders and the heads of the foreign relations committees in the House and Senate issued statements in support of President Barack Obama's Afghanistan plan. Republican lawmakers also praised the plan. On Sunday, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Mr. Obama's rival in last year's presidential race, told NBC News' "Meet the Press" that "the outlines of this proposal are good. The best way to get out of Afghanistan fast is (for) people to think we're staying."

Much interest has focused on the fact that Iran -- Afghanistan's influential neighbor -- will be at the table. That isn't new; Iran has taken part in, or has been invited to, previous Afghanistan conferences. What's different is that "they were ignored when they came. That seems to be changing," said James Dobbins, a former U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan who is now a Washington-based expert at Rand Corp.

In a sign of that trend, an official from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has 62,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan, held a rare meeting with an Iranian diplomat concerning Afghanistan on March 9, shortly after the Hague conference was announced, a NATO spokeswoman confirmed.

The EU's foreign-affairs commissioner said last week that the bloc may use The Hague conference to announce an increase in its aid to Afghanistan, currently set at €610 million ($825 million) for 2007-10. The U.K. last week also urged the EU to negotiate a free-trade deal with Pakistan to help stabilize that country.

Michele Flournoy, a senior Pentagon official who helped craft the new U.S. strategy, said Friday that "we have made some very clear requests of [European allies]," for more troops, trainers and money. The EU plans to expand its police training force -- a key focus of the U.S. review -- from about 200 today to 350 by the end of the spring, according to the spokeswoman for Mr. Solana. That's still short of the 400 promised, and well short of the 4,000 extra U.S. trainers the U.S. review allocates to train Afghanistan's army.

Discussions to hold the conference have been under way since January, pushed by countries such as Australia, which has a little more than 1,000 troops in Afghanistan. Australia isn't a NATO member and so won't be at an alliance summit on April 3-4, which will also focus heavily on Afghanistan.

The U.S., however, forced the issue with its review and expanded the event to include countries from the region, diplomats say.