This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, February 27th, 2008.

I'm Caleb Brown.

What impact is the war in Afghanistan having on the integrity of NATO?

And if the war is winnable, how long will U.S. troops have to stay to help

rebuild Afghan institutions. I spoke with Saeed Jawad, Afghanistan's ambassador to the United

States. He visited the United States.

He visited the Cato Institute yesterday.

There's been some debate here in Washington that rebuilding Afghanistan is testing the international community, especially NATO.

The US, Canada, Britain, the Netherlands feel that they are shouldering too much of the burden

while other countries have been reluctant to take on difficult

combat missions, especially placing troops in southern Afghanistan.

How has your government been dealing with that debate?

Fortunately, the consensus of the international community on the need to help Afghanistan is strong.

We do have some shortcoming on the part of some of the players, but we are certain that

stability in Afghanistan will benefit the region, will benefit Europe, will benefit United States.

And we know for fact that lack of a proper government in Afghanistan and

instability in terrorism in Afghanistan will have far-reaching effects not only to Pakistan or London or

or Madrid but also to New York City and Washington.

The first time that Article 5 of the NATO Charter was ever used was in response to September 11,

2001.

Clearly, NATO was not designed to deal with a threat like Al-Qaeda.

Definitely this is a very good point that you are making.

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