Western democracy is not what Afghanistan needs

The re-appointment of Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan - it can hardly be called a re-election - will not bring joy to anyone. It was a flawed process from the first, costing lives of Afghans and Allied soldiers, showing fraud on a massive scale, and bringing shame on what was intended be a new way of politics for the country.

The electoral commission called off the second round because the withdrawal of Dr Abdullah made it a one-horse race - and the ritual wasn't worth the risks to lives from the threatened Taliban violence. But given that reasoning, this is some kind of propaganda strike for the Taliban.

Urgent steps will have to be taken to repair the damage, short-term and long-term. Immediately now President Obama must announce 'the new strategy' for Afghanistan that has been sitting on his desk for two months. He must stop the endless 'deep consultations' with his soldiers and political flaks - because it is beginning to look like a horrible displacement activity by a man who has lost his nerve.

Obama will have to get at least 20,000 US troops into the country soon - even if he doesn't give General McChrystal the full roster of 40,000 he wants. These are needed to provide the minimum security to the key areas and start the real business of rebuilding the Afghan army and police.

At best this can only be a holding operation. It is the terrible damage done to Afghan society as a whole in 30 years of war and civil war that is the heart of the problem. We were reminded of this by an excellent critique yesterday on BBC radio by Clare Lockhart, co-author with the former World Bank director and Afghan presidential contender Ashraf Ghani of the masterly Fixing Failed States. She is lecturing on fixing the broken Afghan state in London this week.

Dr Lockhart believes that the whole concept of reconstructing Afghanistan is flawed. It is too Western, too redolent of neo-colonialist paternalism to stand a chance. The notion of building democracy on a parliamentary model is short-sighted. It would be better to work through the tribal bottom-up system of the Loya Jirga grand council. Equally, the community and tribal councils, the shuras, stand a better chance than the rickety provincial governor system which depends largely on patronage and corrupt practices.

The shuras today, she told Radio 4 listeners, speak of the circle of "justice, jobs and security". The three are linked. The fact is that very little of the $7bn of aid voted since the overthrow of the Taliban has got to the villages and farmers.

When I first met Dr Lockhart in Kabul two years ago, she was enraged that such a large bulk of the inward investment had gone to just 30 family or clan groups in the entire country - "and it's always the same names that come up," she told me.

She also believes Afghanistan has been on the wrong end of a bloated NGO culture. Yesterday she claimed that there are well over 1,000, and possibly several thousand, NGOs claiming to operate in the country. Most are hardly effective at all, and self-absorbed.

The main aim should be to get amounts of money, and not huge sums, down to the villages to give work and occupation. Any counter-insurgency strategy is doomed to failure unless work and sustenance can be brought to the poorest farmers and villages. Gen McChrystal in his outline strategic plan, published in September by the Washington Post, appears to agree fully with this.

The money must be given to Afghans, almost like millions of micro-investment schemes, and through tribes and villages that offer some insurance or inoculation against the Taliban.

It is very late to start this now, but as Lt Gen Sir Graeme Lamb, now helping the Americans in talking to tribal and village leaders, stated recently: "It's very difficult, but not impossible."

This week, it is a tale of two presidents. President Karzai must be warned by his international backers - they don't have the reserves of blood, treasure, and patience for the same old corrupt business-as-usual of the last four years of his presidential despotism.

For President Obama, the message is clearer. He should stop consulting and talking. He has shown on Afghanistan he is no Lincoln and Churchill, men who were prepared to risk courageously for their clear and noble vision.  It's a three-word sentence, Mr President.

Action this day. ·