A communique after the recent NATO meeting at the Latvian capital, Riga, brought to the fore the crisis the NATO is facing in Afghanistan into which the United States had dragged the European forces. Let us not forget that the primary objective of the Atlantic organization was to protect the West from the communist menace.

This year the NATO had to reckon with far greater challenges from the Taleban than in previous years. Further, a high-ranking Taleban leader claimed that his forces have the strength to withstand the combined European and American military might over the next 20 years.

According to an official report, more than 3,700 people, most of them civilians, have died in Afghanistan this year alone. The number of foreign troops killed was put at 150. There has been a steady increase in the foreign troop casualties in Afghanistan. The Taleban claims that its suicide squads have infiltrated into every town and city in the country and are poised to strike any moment.

An official statement of the Canadian defense authorities gave the number of soldiers killed while serving as part of NATO forces in Afghanistan as 44. It added that recently two of them were killed in a suicide operation in Kandahar in the south of the country.

The 32,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is, obviously, exposed to grave dangers and is losing men since its deployment to the southern hideouts of the Taleban rebels in August.

It was this bleak ground reality that prompted French President Jacques Chirac to suggest that “The NATO should refocus the course of the military operations in Afghanistan which is witnessing renewed violence.”

Chirac added: “In order to provide a conducive atmosphere for success we must schedule our actions in a comprehensive strategic framework supported by political and economic activities.”

In my view it is essential that a committee be set up with countries of the region with the leading nations participating in the NATO forces and the international organizations as members, to discuss the future line of action in Afghanistan. This should be on the lines of the international force in Kosovo.

The US has called for increased international cooperation to bring peace in that country. It wanted all NATO member countries to send forces for the Afghan mission. The US has been particularly worried because the public opinion in several countries participating in the operations in Afghanistan is turning against such risky involvement. Again, Afghanistan was the central topic of discussion at the Riga summit as some countries expressed fear of digging deeper into the Afghan quagmire.

That is why the final communique of the summit stressed, quite understandably, the significance of each of the 37 nations reinforcing its contingent serving in the ISAF. It was also announced at the summit that leaders of the NATO member states agreed to lift the ban on deploying their troops in certain regions in Afghanistan. They all have welcomed the likely pullout of their forces by 2008 as has been hinted by NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer when he declared that the NATO presence has made notable progress in Afghanistan. Scheffer also spoke of starting the process of transferring power, though gradually, to the local government in Afghanistan.

The present and past history of the country suggests the difficulty of bringing a people divided by diverse tribal affiliations and ethnic origins under a systematic central power. Going by its past history, no outside power will be able to control Afghanistan. Even the British Empire at the peak of its glory and majesty with the vast Indian Subcontinent under its sway, had failed to colonize Afghanistan.

The French president’s suggestion to set up a body comprising the countries of the region and the major NATO members and the United Nations is therefore worth considering. This is the only practical way to form a government capable of governing the country effectively. All the diverse groups and parties in the country including the Taleban should be part of this political entity. Only such a national entity would be capable of freeing the country from the cycle of violence and creating a peaceful political environment.

Now I wonder whether the US will agree to the French proposal. It is high time the US authorities understood that the military force alone couldn’t destroy the terror.