In August, US military forces will take over control of Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province from the Dutch military mission, which ends that month. For a long time, The Hague had hoped it would not come to this.

Commentary by Bette Dam

[see also: US set to take over Dutch ISAF mission]

Over the past few years, the Americans were one of the main obstacles for the Dutch mission in Uruzgan. The Dutch aimed to build an administration which enjoys broad support in the province and they are still doing that. The US forces in Uruzgan, however, focused on backing a few strong warlords and 'Taliban haters'  bent on squashing any resistance. Developing long-term peace strategies is the one thing the Americans are not doing.

This is not the only difference. The Dutch mission opposes the idea of supporting militias in Deh Rawod or Chora. They are hard to control, tend to look after their own tribal interests and oppose other militias. The Americans, however, back local militias and finance them with lots of money.
 
Rivals   
As a result, the Dutch often have to face both the 'regular' Afghan enemy and their US allies, who can seem like rivals. Though both are NATO partners, over the past four years the Dutch and the Americans have scarcely bridged their differences.

In addition to cultural differences, there is also a persistent rift over the best approach to bring peace to Afghanistan. The progress the Dutch and Afghans have made in some areas has failed to persuade the Americans to change their strategy.

'Takes way too long'
Meanwhile, two minor US camps in Uruzgan have turned into veritable forts, where it is too dangerous to venture past the gates. The US soldiers I have interviewed tend to sneer at the Dutch “soft approach”. Their jargon lacks terms such as 'talking, negotiating, good governance.' “Takes way too long”, is the usual response.

Over the past few months, there have been frantic efforts to find a country willing to replace the Dutch troops. Pressure was brought to bear on Britain, which is supposed to have at least some understanding of the approach the Dutch have successfully applied in Uruzgan. Denmark seemed briefly willing to take over provided, however, the Dutch stayed too - but the Dutch parliament blocked that.

Dropping in the polls
The Dutch lobby failed to prevail inside NATO, which few in Afghanistan still call an alliance. Western countries there are merely trying to survive busy as they are trying to influence the polls, which show their approval ratings dropping ever lower. Given the effort all this requires, taking on another Afghan province is out of the question, even though Uruzgan has proved NATO´s most successful project by far.

The United States does have the will, the money and the space. So come August, things will be different Uruzgan. Old warlords will be back in the saddle. In some villages militias will roam around with ruthless divide-and-rule tactics. And once the Netherlands stops being the “lead nation”, Uruzgan will get far less attention. In December, a US spokesperson told me that Uruzgan “wasn´t really the center of the universe”. “We also need to take care of Helmand and Kandahar, you know.”