Afghanistan has been dubbed the ‘forgotten’ war, but its history should not be forgotten. As the Obama administration begins to reassess the war in Afghanistan, now is the time to reflect on the history of Afghanistan to get a better understanding of our mission and the keys to success.

A deep debate is underway within the administration about the decision to increase the amount of troops in Afghanistan. There have been multiple reports that violence in Afghanistan is increasing. The West is losing support from the local people and the August presidential election in Afghanistan was rife with fraud. The point to take from this, however, is not that Afghanistan is a perpetual quagmire, but that improvements have been made. At least there has been an election for a president in a country previously renowned for being a host to terrorist and autocratic rulers.

Vice President Biden visited Afghanistan in mid-January 2008 when he was the vice president-elect. In Time magazine he stated, ‘There needs to be more resources to attend to in the situation of Afghanistan. It has not gotten better.’ Biden has become known as the cynic in the White House in terms of the war effort in Afghanistan. The New York Times reports that he has called for the United States to scale back the fight in Afghanistan and focus on a smaller scale of rooting out Al Qaeda throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I think that it is convenient to look at the bleak or depressing developments in Afghanistan, not the hope and promise within that country. This is not from a military perspective, but as a student of history and diplomacy.

I recently watched a special documentary on PBS recorded about the war called, simply enough, ‘Afghanistan: The Forgotten War’ that first aired in July 2008. It was about PBS Correspondent Bill Gentile’s journey with a platoon of American marines in Afghanistan. A captain of the marines said to local Afghan elders, ‘I know that I myself and my marines are just another face after 30 years of different people coming through this area. But what I have told my marines is that the question we have to answer to you all is that how are we different.’

Afghanistan is looked at throughout history as a crossroads of great powers. In the 1970s, Communist regimes took over Afghanistan in the form of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan. By 1978, however, an insurgency had begun to protest the communist government. The Soviet Union soon intervened in an attempt to support the communist government of Afghanistan, while the rebels, known as the mujahideen, found support within the United States. The Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan after nearly ten years of fighting in 1988-1989. Various mujahideen groups controlled Afghanistan until the Taliban took over in 1996. The rest is history.

All of this background information found in any textbook touches upon a major point: there has been no stable, just government in Afghanistan for decades. But now, with help from the United States, that process is taking place.

The cover story of The Economist this week discussed ‘Obama’s war’ in Afghanistan. The article pointed out that ‘it is worth remembering that in 2006, before the American surge, prospects in Iraq looked far bleaker than they do in Afghanistan.’

Afghanistan has the opportunity to be reformed into a new country, but only with the U.S. support and a keen eye on the complex history of this nation.Andrew Swab is a sophomore magazine and international relations major. His columns appear weekly. He can be reached at ajswab@syr.edu.

Published on October 17, 2009 at 12:00 pm