This is not the way to fight terrorism

In this country, the debate over Afghanistan has focused narrowly on the role of Canadian troops. Should they stay or come home? If they do stay, should they continue offensive counterinsurgency combat operations against the Taliban or play a more traditional "peacekeeping" role providing protection for aid-givers?

In fact, the real questions posed by Afghanistan are far more fundamental. They have to do with the war on terror itself and the way it is prosecuted. Specifically, they have to do with whether terror can be defeated by war. There is growing evidence it cannot.

Iraq provides the most obvious example. An invasion ostensibly designed to fight terrorists ended up creating terrorists. Most notably, it motivated a few British Muslims to bomb the London subway system. As the New York Times reported this week, jihadists who learned their trade in the Iraq insurgency are exporting their skills to neighbouring states. The entire Iraq affair has been a disaster.

Afghanistan is not Iraq. Yet there are chilling similarities. The first is that the invasion of that country in 2001 has strengthened extremists there. The second – raised by the arrest last summer of 18 Toronto-area Muslims on suspicion of terrorism – is that the repercussions of Western military operations in Afghanistan are being felt here.

Evidence for the first proposition comes from all quarters. Thanks in part to the Afghan war, extreme elements of the Taliban now dominate tribal areas in neighbouring Pakistan, forming part of the volatile mixture that threatens the stability of that regime.

In Afghanistan itself, anger is steadily mounting against foreign troops. In March a survey by the non-profit, London-based Senlis Institute found that roughly half of those polled in the area of Afghanistan where Canada is operating, now believe the Taliban will win. More than a quarter openly admit to supporting the Taliban.

That doesn't mean a quarter of the Afghan population wants to bomb the CN Tower. The Taliban is a complicated mix of tribal traditionalists, Islamic zealots and Afghan nationalists. Yet, perversely, the Western fixation with Al Qaeda seems to have raised that organization's prestige within the Taliban.

What is to be done? One answer is to wage counterinsurgency warfare in a smarter way. That's the message delivered to a parliamentary committee this week by Senlis board member Noreen MacDonald. She says Canada should spend more on aid, to win the allegiance of Afghans. Only if there is popular support, she says, can the military battle be won.

While this approach is not foolish, it continues to cast the problem of Afghanistan – like the problem of terror generally – in largely military terms. In fact, both problems are fundamentally political. Canadians may not like the obscurantist, misogynist ways of the Taliban. But plenty of Afghans do.

In the '70s, traditionalist Afghans fought their own Communist government when it tried to reform the backward social system. After the Soviet Union invaded in 1979 to support that government, they fought it, too. They are still fighting. The only difference is that they are fighting us.

So, forget the war on terror. Terror feeds on war. Paradoxically, the precondition for success in Afghanistan is peace. This is not a bromide but a fact.

However, peace is not easy. It requires political accommodation – not only with those of whom we approve but with those whose views we detest. This will be the hard part. The alternative is worse.