[LINK] "Afghanistan fears becoming `orphan' as international forces withdraw"

[rfmcdonald]

Postmedia News' Jeff Davis reports that, as Canada's involvement in Afghanistan winds down, Afghans and their allies worry the country might be abandoned altogether.

Something like that is pretty much inevitable, I fear. Canadians tend not to have very positive associations with Afghanistan. The goal of a stable, pluralistic Afghanistan is seen as mission impossible, especially in the light of all the negative press of late.

The Afghan embassy in Ottawa is calling on Canada to continue supporting the war-torn country, amid fears it could become an "international orphan" after Western forces withdraw in 2014.

Afghanistan's top diplomat in Canada, charge d'affaires Mirwais Salehi, said he worries that much-needed support from Western countries may be coming to an end.

"We want a kind of assurance that in 2014 not everybody will close their eyes and go back home," he said. "We want Canadian support very, very long beyond 2014."

Salehi said Afghans are worried Western countries will abandon them, leaving the country in situation similar to the 1990s, when civil war broke out following the departure of Russian military forces.

The lack of international support during this critical period allowed the Taliban to seize power, he said. "We don't want to repeat history again and again, because it will cost the lives of many innocent people," Salehi added.

Fen Hampson, a professor of international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, said Afghanistan became an "international orphan" in the 1990s. The current situation, he said, is becoming eerily similar.

"I think there's a sense of deja vu in many, many ways," he said.

Hampson said many NATO countries appear to have run out of patience with the country, having decided it is "mission impossible." U.S. President Barack Obama, for example, is coming under increased pressure to accelerate plans to withdraw from the country before 2014, he said.

"I think there's a deep sense of pessimism, quite frankly, about Afghanistan's future," he said. "In NATO the British, the French, everyone is pulling back, getting ready to pull out."