British troops bear the brunt in Afghanistan

Guardian News Service, London

The British government's decision to send 1,700 combat troops and support personnel to Afghanistan represents a significant, perilous deepening of direct British military involvement in America's global war against al-Qaeda, Taliban and like-minded "evil-doers". Britain has been riding shotgun on George Bush's anti-terrorist stagecoach since the U.S. began its armed response to the Sept. 11 attacks last October. Now it has been promoted to deputy sheriff.

As is often the case with promotions, it is unclear whether increased responsibility will bring increasing influence. The newly deploying British units will remain firmly under U.S. command, reinforcing an impression already formed in the skies over Iraq and in Kosovo of a surrogate army marching to Washington's tune.

An enhanced British military commitment should logically mean enhanced British political clout. But the evidence that this will happen is not encouraging. On the contrary, Britain is being sucked ever more stickily into a widening conflict produced and directed in America and over which, in all honesty, it has very little real control.

British troops may be preferred because, as tabloid patriots see it, U.S. forces cannot hack it by themselves in the high mountain ranges of eastern Afghanistan. Only British commandos, it is said, have the skills, resourcefulness and endurance to succeed where others, most recently in Operation Anaconda, failed.

This sort of talk makes the chest swell with pride. The thought of such John Bull prowess, still unmatched after years of playing second fiddle to the Pentagon, warms the heart. Except it is the sort of foolish talk that gets men killed. Our soldiers are able, well-trained and relatively experienced (although they could certainly be better equipped).

But they cannot perform miracles. They bleed and die like anybody else. Then again, the British call-up may be part of Washington's ongoing effort to sustain its fond but increasingly fictitious idea of a global anti-terror coalition. For added cosmopolitan tang, the Canadians have also been invited to join in.

Yet amid all the possible explanations, the unattractive suspicion lurks that Bush and his hard-nosed advisers, concerned about recent US casualties and the domestic political cost of more failures, may be taking advantage of Tony Blair's unswerving, idealistic but perhaps too trusting goodwill. Those who would be a force for good in the world should remember that the world cannot be forced to be good. And that includes recalcitrant US governments schooled in Yankee pragmatism.

This additional deployment is problematic for Britain for a number of practical reasons. Its objectives and method are unclear. It further strains the already over-stretched armed services. It raises the prospect of fighting an unseen, unnumbered, unknown guerrilla enemy for months, even years to come in what could become a Soviet-style quagmire.

It thereby places Britain ever more firmly in the firing line of a potentially violent backlash in the Islamic world. And it may swiftly compromise its leading role in the Kabul-based stabilization force.

It is this last consideration, if no other, that really should give Blair pause. He was right last autumn to call for a big international peacekeeping effort all across Afghanistan. His initiative was vetoed by the Pentagon which said peacekeeping and war-fighting were incompatible activities.

But both, simultaneously, are what Britain is now being asked to do. If Afghanistan is ever successfully to address its long- term problems, it needs more peace, not more war. By bowing to Washington once again, Britain is being pulled in exactly the wrong direction.