---

Middle East and Afghanistan

My Lords, I shall follow the lead given by the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, on Afghan issues and her striking analysis of Afghan poverty. Afghanistan has been subject to almost 200 years of continuous foreign intervention because of its geographical position. Being between what was British India, now Pakistan, and the tsarist and then Soviet empire, and east of a long frontier with Persia, now Iran, has made Afghanistan the subject of continuous interest. Time after time, the scale of foreign intervention has turned Afghanistan into a client state, the rules of the game having little to do with Afghan interests yet the outcome of each engagement being of no more than tactical importance to the players—short-term policy dominated, first, London, Delhi and Moscow and later Washington, Islamabad and Tehran. Modern technology in warfare and within the global economy has changed the rules. There was the Russian occupation from 1979 to 1989, the Pakistani-backed Taliban, al-Qaeda, the overthrow of the Taliban, the destruction of al-Qaeda and now NATO. No longer can we rely on short-term policies. The risks are unacceptable. Afghanistan's 24 million people have acquired a geopolitical importance which fully engages with our strategic interests. In the past 30 years, there has also been extreme ideological intervention in Afghanistan. There was the break-up of the monarchy, with its complex history of succession; the rise of Marxist/Leninist factions; the arrival of the Soviets, and the Islamist response to their departure; the medieval Taliban regime demonstrating extremism at its worst—and all that in contrast to Afghanistan before the early 1970s. Until then the moderate Hanafi school of Sunni Islam predominated. Indeed, the 1964 constitution, while recognising Hanafi practice, wrote in a separation of powers and established a system of secular courts. The attempt was only partially successful, as was the system of elections to the parliament. Nevertheless, the Afghan people have not been attracted to centralisation and command and control, choosing instead to maintain their many differing societies, consistent with ethnic grouping; for example, the Uzbek and Tajik people of the north, living south of the River Armu beyond which lie Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The largest and often dominant ethnic group in the south, the Pashtuns, are divided between Afghanistan and Pakistan by the Durand line of 1893. That settlement has been, and remains, a source of discontent and dispute. It has contributed to major changes in Pakistani policy, from backing the Taliban to today's expressions of support for the US-led war on terror. I hope that the Government are more certain than I am about the continuing role of the Pakistani directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Has that leopard fully changed its spots? If a Taliban fighter, once trained, is paid more than an Afghan policeman, it spells trouble. Economically, Afghanistan suffers from being landlocked and having very difficult terrain and a climate of extremes. Although it has natural resources, they are difficult to develop. Given an income of less than $1 a day per head of population, a third of which comes from narcotics, President Musharraf has a point when calling for economic development on the lines of the Marshall Plan. One thoughtful estimate proposes a $20 billion investment programme in addition to present official aid, which is nearly all aimed at current government expenditure. Indeed, if the institutions which are necessary to a successful 21st century state are to develop, Afghanistan's income per head needs to rise sharply. In any chicken-and-egg analysis, income needs to rise first to achieve democratic institutions and not the other way around; nor is there any way in which the necessary capital formation can come from the savings of people as poor as the Afghans. Taxation is at one of the lowest levels in the world because there is not much to tax, nor any widespread collection system. Whether for reasons of the West's relationship with Islam, of the geopolitical balance in the region or the need to see NATO succeed, it is in our interests to stay with the challenging problems of Afghanistan and to see the country through to becoming a stable, significantly secular state, at peace with itself and its neighbours, a state to which many more far-flung expatriates will wish to return and which can play a part in the global economy. Membership of the global economy is now a necessary condition for peace and stability. In total, those objectives are way beyond any task that we have so far set ourselves, the most difficult challenge being the separation of religion from secular society in a country committed to development. Malaysia has shown that that can be done, as has Indonesia, at least so far. Considering our present contribution, our forces on the ground come first with their professionalism and long experience of countering terrorism and civil disorder. It is right that we praise them, but what task have we set them? Does it include knowledge and involvement in economic development alongside the Department for International Development, the World Bank and NATO? What about the economic implications of the long-running dispute with Iran over the use of the waters of the River Helmand, or do we look only for less Taliban-led disruption and violence and for the destruction of poppies? What happens after that? As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, said, imagination is needed. On the DfID website the country profile of Afghanistan is instructive and depressing. Its opening description is pessimistic. Its catalogue of comparatively small aid initiatives is focused on support to a Government who do not inspire DfID's confidence. Amazingly, its pages make no mention of NATO or of British troops on the ground. While the World Bank recognises that major private sector development is vital for sustainable economic progress, DfID confines itself to micro-initiatives. None of that will give the Afghans confidence that there is a substitute for poppy income and none is in prospect. As DfID says, its plans, which are short term, do not deal with medium- and long-term economic challenges. The economic issues faced by Afghanistan have changed those rules too. DfID needs to think through its intellectual approach. Just what level of income per head would provide a better chance of peace and stability, and how could we achieve it? What about a well targeted $20 billion investment in productive assets, with a security situation which did not unduly affect the costs of construction? A co-ordinated approach led by the Washington institutions incorporating Europe-wide and bilateral programmes should be carefully examined. In default of a co-ordinated development strategy, it is not enough to call it reconstruction. We are in danger of repeating the post-war issues of Iraq. Yet, with a strategy, we could lift Afghan incomes to between $800 and $1,000 a head. That might break the cycle of poverty. It will be recognised that such a determined and expensive strategy would be difficult to sell to domestic electorates, but it is not impossible. The more than 600 million people of north America and Europe are well capable of lifting 24 million Afghans out of poverty. The great benefits of demonstrating that the West can succeed do not need elaboration; they are obvious. Let us not do half a job: going as far as lessening violence, then losing interest, as the United States of America might do if the war on terrorism were to take a better or a different turn. Let us persist and finish the job. A thousand dollars a head is not riches, but it would be a great deal better than $300.