Gathering disquiet about the objectives and the achievements of the United States-led military campaign against Afghanistan have been borne out by a number of setbacks in recent days. Political and military leaders stress the long-term and international nature of the campaign and the need to focus clearly on its political justification. They candidly acknowledge that military mistakes have been made. They underline the vital need for a viable political administration to take over from the Taliban regime, as well as to maintain the international coalition that supports the campaign. But they have an increasingly difficult task to demonstrate that they are mounting the most effective campaign possible against those responsible for the terrorist atrocities on September 11th.
Mounting civilian casualties are a reminder that war is a dirty business, even in a period of high technology weapons and precise targeting. Taliban fighters make formidable and ruthless enemies, as was shown by their capture and execution of the Afghan leader, Abdul Haq, last week. If there were any misplaced expectations of a rapid implosion and collapse of the Taliban regime after three weeks of air attacks, they have been dispelled by events on the ground. It has similarly been brought home that after decades of fighting, it will be no easy task to convince deeply divided Afghan factions and ethnic groups to co-operate.
The polarising effect of the war has been dreadfully shown in the weekend massacre of Christians in Bahawalpur, in the southern Punjab part of Pakistan. That must reinforce the determination to prevent such inter-religious violence - precisely what the perpetrators of the September 11th attacks want to encourage. A large part of the responsibility for that lies with leaders of Muslim countries who are just as opposed to fundamentalism as Western governments. Unless Muslim leaders are kept on side in the international coalition, the campaign against terrorism cannot succeed in the long-term fashion portrayed strongly yesterday by the US Secretary of Defence, Mr Donald Rumsfeld.
This means that the campaign's military and political goals must be explained clearly and in a spirit of genuine international co-operation. A long-term campaign cannot be successful if it is run on the lines of a US-led posse with selected sympathetic states. It will require a real multilateral effort, using the mechanisms of the United Nations as a source of legitimacy and effectiveness, and not just as a convenient receptacle for a post-Taliban regime. Afghanistan will need huge humanitarian and developmental assistance if its peoples are to recover from this disaster.
In that context, the military strategy deserves the most careful scrutiny. It has been widely supported on the basis that it would be targeted, proportionate and compatible with humanitarian relief. These last few days have shown that these conditions can be difficult indeed to justify, especially when there are misconceived expectations that they can be achieved in a short space of time.