Analyst Says Current Strategy Making Matters Worse

But with Canadian forces daily facing catastrophic injury and death in a mission most Canadians just do not understand, we will not find our way out of the Afghanistan quagmire unless we get back to the fundamentals of modern complex peace operations. The insistence of the international community on a peace process as the starting point for any post-conflict peacekeeping effort is a very pragmatic one. The aim is not to go to war with the parties — however well-armed the international force may be — but to help them build the democratic institutions and processes that will enable them to manage societal conflicts in a non-violent way. A robust force can deter violations of the peace agreement, and effectively address them when they occur and thus build confidence in the peace process. But this presumes that all or most of the key players want peace more than war, so that individual spoilers can be effectively isolated and dealt with, under the Chapter VII mandate. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060307.wafghanmason0307/BNStory/Afghanistan/

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