Dutch withdrawal from Afghanistan: a vacuum for peace-building?

Although international peace and security seems to be paramount on the agenda of most developed countries, it gets to a time when domestic politics takes precedence.
The governing Dutch coalition collapsed Feb. 20 over disputes about the date for the withdrawal of their soldiers Afghanistan. In October 2009, the Dutch parliament voted that the deployment must end by August 2010. But Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's government gave no endorsement to the vote.
After not being able to reach a compromise during the marathon talks that ran until early Feb. 19, the Labor Party (the second largest party in the coalition government) decided to pull out of the coalition.
This leaves Balkenende's government with a minority in parliament. As there is no common ground, Balkenende has offered his cabinet's resignation to Queen Beatrix.
While most of the 150 members of the legislature oppose keeping the troops in Afghanistan, NATO has asked the Netherlands to extend its commitment for a year past the August withdrawal date. NATO is under the litmus test. The way in which it handles these developments will prove its efficacy.
"The 'Afghanistan surge' will put NATO to an even greater test," said Dr. Hans-Martin Jaeger, a political science professor at Carleton University. "I don't see it as a make-or-break situation for NATO, but [.] the reluctance of America's European allies to increase their troop levelscould further diminish NATO's international standing. From the US perspective, it is atest of intra-Western solidarity; from the European perspective, a test of the viability of US leadership."
Since Aug. 1, 2006, the Netherlands has been the lead nation in the province of Uruzgan with a contribution of between 1,650 and 2,000 troops - 21 Dutch soldiers have been killed so far.
Their mission in the Uruzgan province is of a military-civilian nature, an approach widely known as "3-D" (Defense, Development and Diplomacy), with the focus on reconstruction, and military action only when necessary.
From 2006, the Netherlands has disbursed more than _300 million ($450 million US) in official development assistance to Afghanistan, more than _100 million ($150 million US) in Uruzgan alone. The total between 2006 and 2011 has reached more than _1.5 billion.
With this, the governor of Uruzgan province has said peace and reconstruction efforts would suffer a setback if the Dutch left as they have been playing a vital role building roads, training the Afghan police and providing security for civilians.
"If they withdraw and leave these projects incomplete, then they will leave a big vacuum," said Asadullah Hamdam, Governor of Uruzgan province, to the BBC.
The good news, however, is that Britain plans to be militarily engaged with Afghanistan for another five years.
The head of the Army, General Sir David Richards, has said the ongoing offensive attack on the Taliban is beginning to show positive signs and he is quite optimistic things will soon fall into its proper shape.
"The Taliban is now beginning to realize that they can lose this war, which was not the view they had a year ago," said Richards to the BBC.
Almost on the contrary, Afghan President Hamid Karzai seems to have forgotten the promises he gave the international community during his inauguration. He has reportedly granted himself powers over a key electoral watchdog, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), ahead of the country's elections on August 20.
In a new presidential decree, Karzai has given himself the power to appoint all five members of the ECC. This decree has removed the three foreign experts that were on the commission under the previous law. The move will possibly upset NATO allies fighting insurgents within the country.
While NATO is expected to have 4,000 extra soldiers in advance of the summer elections, Karzai's quest to make sure Afghanistan does not become a "puppet state" might only slow the progress and stability that many countries hope to see in the war-torn country.
In essence, a much stronger and prudent leadership is expected of Karzai to get Afghanistan on its feet as a stable country.