[Thanks to this blog for the image]

Reflecting on the Uruzgan fallout, I revisited something I wrote back in late 2007 following the decision to extend the Dutch mission for a further two years up to August 2010. Its worth taking another look with the current context in mind:

“Since the beginning of 2007 there have been clear indications that political manoeuvres were taking place in The Hague to prepare the way for a prolonging of the Uruzgan mission. Defence Minister Eimert van Middelkoop admitted as much in June when he stated that the cabinet had the ‘political intention’ to prolong, an honest announcement that still got him into trouble for apparently ignoring the need to get parliamentary support. Whose political intention was not clear, since other reports pointed to serious divisions between the Christian Democrats, in particular Foreign Minister Verhagen, and the Labour party’s Development Minister Koenders. But this was more than just a typical intra-coalition battle being fought through the committee rooms of the Binnenhof. In August the Chief of Staff, Dick Berlijn, declared that it would be ‘a moral failure’ for a prosperous nation like the Dutch to turn its back on Afghanistan. Meanwhile NATO was a constant factor in the political deliberations, something that van Middelkoop had admitted back in March when he said that pressures from abroad for a prolonging of the mission were growing. This pressure went public in September when the Secretary General of NATO de Hoop Scheffer declared that ‘no one can leave. No one is going to leave. I can honestly not believe that the Netherlands will be the only one to leave.’”

“By October the stakes were very high. Moral failure. Abandoning those less well off. Walking away from international commitments. It couldn’t have been clearer that any divisions still aggravating the Christian Democrat – Labour relationship would be overcome by much greater demands. Some financial compromises here, accents on particular policies there, and an agreement would be reached. Koenders has all along backed the mission as a vital exercise in pro-active development work, calling at one stage to transform the valleys of Uruzgan into the Betuwe through a substantial effort to improve agricultural production (i.e. get the farmers to grow something else other than opium poppies). Verhagen on the other hand has proved himself to be closely allied to US security policy in general. The original Uruzgan mission statement from late 2005 reflected this difference in emphasis between the two, with the mandate of the Dutch forces being to support socio-economic development and not having anything to do with the simultaneous US-led Enduring Freedom operation with its ‘hunt bin Laden’ motivation. This distinction prevented major resistance from the PvdA, and Koenders’ enthusiasm has done the rest. Socialists hate being told by the military that they are leading the country into moral failure. Koenders has as much a sense of mission as Verhagen, if only with a different emphasis.”

“But this is much more than a struggle between the Left and the Right in Dutch politics. The main issue in the Afghanistan question has all along been the role of the Netherlands in global politics, and here the declarations of both Berlijn and de Hoop Scheffer are key. What does this country stand for? It stands for free trade, the development of poorer regions of the world, international legal norms, the promotion of democratic freedoms, justice – In short, a stable legal order that enables international transactions in all fields to operate openly and smoothly, in the common interest. Two ‘pillars’ provide the backbone to this outlook. Firstly, there is a strong moral commitment from the Dutch in general for doing something for those in need elsewhere. Secondly, there is the security commitment to NATO as the fundamental organization around which Dutch military planning is orientated. The two pillars have combined around the mission to Afghanistan.”

In 2007 the impact of outside pressure on the Netherlands was very evident, all the way to a Dutch Secretary General of NATO taking the remarkable step of applying moral pressure on his own nation. This, coupled with the determination to believe in the development aspect of the mission, and – crucially – the failure of NATO to find a replacement for the Netherlands as an ISAF lead nation in South Afghanistan, eventually led to the Labour party agreeing to a two-year extension till 2010.

In 2009-2010 a similar situation presented itself, only this time, due to the strict timetable agreed in November 2007, the stakes were higher. On 25 September 2009 the cabinet declared that the mission would end in August 2010 and that no Minister would give any indication of what might follow until the cabinet had collectively agreed. But the signs of what was to come were already there on Wednesday 23rd, when Maxime Verhagen – in New York – stated that the Netherlands couldn’t simply pass the task in Uruzgan to others.

For Labour, the letter earlier this month from current NATO Secretary General Rasmussen requesting a new Dutch mission, for all its good intentions, fell exactly into the category of outside pressure that had been so evident back in 2007. It was a clear indication that once again the Netherlands was being manouevered into an Afghan escapade by a combination of external persuasion and domestic political interests. The publication of Rasmussen’s letter – a surprising move before any decision had been taken, to say the least – confirms this.

The general interpretation of Bos’s decision to end the coalition is that it was based on his domestic political battle with Balkenende and Verhagen and the hope that it would produce votes in the upcoming local elections. It is true that the merits of the Dutch mission in Uruzgan ultimately disappeared from the debate. But this conclusion misses the profound international dimension that was present all along – the ability of the Netherlands to take a different path from the one it was expected to take. And on that point Wouter Bos is an intriguing figure, because it is clear that he is highly resistant to US pressure, and he takes the idea of an independent national policy seriously, NATO or no NATO. With the Davids report on backroom deals and the Atlantic reflex still fresh in the memory, I think he stepped out of the cabinet as much for this reason as anything else. I recall a story that Bos, several years ago the state secretary at the Ministry of Finance, received an unwelcome telephone call from then US Ambassador Clifford Sobel offering some forthright advice on Dutch fiscal policy. Bos was not amused about this clumsy attempt at influence, and said so.

There is a line here. It raises some interesting questions, but I don’t see this point getting much air time in the Dutch media, I guess because it can be too easily caricatured as Anti-Americanism and that kills off any effort to take it seriously.

But word has it that visible contacts between the Netherlands government and the US are going to be kept to a minimum during the election campaign.

Latest political speculation: Elections are now being held on 9 June. If a cabinet of Christian Democrats, Liberals, and Wilders’ PVV could be formed relatively quickly, it might still be able to act on the Uruzgan mission before the 1 August deadline for its withdrawal…….