Why is the U.N.’s man in Kabul so cheerful?

The UN’s envoy to Afghanistan, Jan Kubis, would have us believe that the UN Security Council is fully committed to Afghanistan’s stability as NATO winds down its operation. After attending a Council meeting on Afghanistan, he told reporters in Kabul that the international committment is strong:  The international community will continue supporting Afghanistan after U.S. ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

The UN's envoy to Afghanistan, Jan Kubis, would have us believe that the UN Security Council is fully committed to Afghanistan's stability as NATO winds down its operation. After attending a Council meeting on Afghanistan, he told reporters in Kabul that the international committment is strong: 

The UN’s envoy to Afghanistan, Jan Kubis, would have us believe that the UN Security Council is fully committed to Afghanistan’s stability as NATO winds down its operation. After attending a Council meeting on Afghanistan, he told reporters in Kabul that the international committment is strong: 

The international community will continue supporting Afghanistan after U.S. and NATO combat forces leave the war-wracked nation by the end of 2014, a top U.N. envoy said Tuesday.

Jan Kubis said he heard strong commitment for Afghanistan at a recent U.N. Security Council meeting and dismissed predictions that the nation was headed for collapse after the foreign troops withdraw…

“The international community is ready to do everything possible to support Afghanistan and frankly, to help Afghanistan not lapse into these kind of doom-and-gloom scenarios that are coming from different places,” said Kubis, the U.N. envoy to Afghanistan.

One hopes that Kubis, an experienced former Slovakian foreign minister, is putting the best face on a bad situation, not showcasing his political analysis skills. It is abundantly clear that the international community  is not ready to do everything possible. In fact, its appetite for further engagement in Afghanistan appears to be diminishing by the day.

Kubis will need whatever optimism he can muster; as NATO withdraws, the United Nations is likely to be left holding the bag in a country headed toward deeper fragmentation and violence. And the UN will have far fewer resources than the Western alliance did.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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