After Attack, U.N. Pulls Back in Afghanistan

Say this for the insurgents in Afghanistan: they evidently have a good lesson-learning process. As I wondered after gunmen stormed a U.N. safe house last week, the U.N. mission in Afghanistan will follow the a similar script as after the 2003 bombing of its compound in Iraq. It’s withdrawing hundreds of employees from Kabul until it can build a more-secure compound. It’s unclear when that will be, and although mission chief Kai Eide says it’s only temporary, the construction of a new U.N. facility for Afghanistan in close-enough Dubai raises doubts.

This is not an identical situation to Iraq. Eide says humanitarian services won’t be interrupted — how can he promise that? — and he’s also leaning on Karzai for anti-corruption measures by leveraging the prospect of a U.N. pullback. So perhaps he’s turning the attack into an advantage.