ANALYSIS - Afghans, not NATO, to decide fate of Marjah offensive

U.S. Marines from Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines lie on the ground during an operation in the town of Marjah, in Nad Ali district of Helmand province February 16, 2010.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite early signs of success by the U.S. military, experts say the fate of the Marjah offensive will depend increasingly on long-criticized Afghan partners meant to be the face of the operation.

Currently in a supporting role, Afghan forces and officials are expected to become more prominent as NATO seeks to meet its objective of installing a state presence and winning local support -- as opposed to just killing Taliban.

The Afghan troops in Operation Mushtarak -- a Dari word for "together" -- will be knocking on doors in Marjah and helping avert the perception of a foreign occupation. Afghan teams will also be the ones eradicating poppy crops at the centre of the world's opium trade which funds the insurgency.

But for the Afghan government to maintain support -- even in the event of more civilian casualties -- it will have to deliver services, root out corruption and win local trust, all of which it has failed to do in the past.

Arturo Munoz, who has worked with the CIA in Afghanistan and is now an analyst at the Rand Corporation, said promises were made to Marjah's leaders of better times ahead and expectations were high.

"The biggest risk is that those expectations will not be met and you're going to have the same old, inefficient and incompetent government that you see in a lot of Afghanistan," Munoz said.

The U.S. military views the assault, which despite Taliban resistance is still seen on track, as a turning point in the effort to regain momentum from militants after eight years of a war in which casualties and costs are accelerating.

It is also a model of the counterinsurgency strategy envisioned by the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, and endorsed by President Barack Obama, who is deploying 30,000 additional U.S. troops.

But that strategy, which aims to start drawing down those forces and begin handing over security responsibilities to Afghans next year, depends on an Afghan state that can defy critics by bringing governance to places like Marjah.

COUNTER-NARCOTICS VS COUNTER-INSURGENCY

A U.S. defence official, who is aware of operational plans and spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged a major challenge would be grappling with a booming narcotics trade that funds the Taliban and corrupt Afghan officials.

Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's illegal opium, the raw ingredient used to make heroin. Much of it comes from areas outside state control, like Marjah.

Local police are being swapped out entirely and replaced by Afghan national police because many of them are believed to be corrupt and untrained, the U.S. official said.

Although U.S. forces will target processing labs, transportation networks and bazaars that sell narcotics, only Afghans will carry out manual eradication efforts of the poppy crop, which will be ready for harvest in late April or early May. Eradication may begin within weeks, the official said.

Provincial authorities will promote alternative jobs, crops and funding from farmers.

But analysts voiced concern that eradication was neither viable nor likely to be embraced by Afghans in the short term.

"I would suspect that that may not happen, because there has been such an aversion to eradication over the past couple of years," said Jeffrey Dressler at the Institute for the Study of War, who recently briefed Marines heading to Afghanistan.

Munoz said eradication could hurt efforts to win "hearts and minds," and crop substitution was tough in wartime.

"So you're almost in an impossible situation, where you are going to take over this area, kick out the guerrillas, terminate the Taliban shadow government -- and at the same time you're going to change the livelihood of a lot of the peasants," he said. "That would be hard enough to do even when there's no war."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose own re-election last year was overshadowed by widespread voter fraud, is expected to help put an Afghan face on the initiative by travelling to Marjah after the clearing operations for talks with locals.

Critical for Karzai's support for the offensive will be keeping civilian casualties low during stepped up military actions over the next few weeks.

McChrystal has emphasized precautions meant to avoid killing civilians. But NATO rockets killed 12 civilians by accident on Sunday and another three were killed on Monday.

"The issue of civilian casualties is extremely sensitive in Afghanistan ... If this turns into Fallujah, then I think the Afghan government would withdraw support," Munoz said.

He was referring to the 2004 offensive in Iraq that saw jets and tanks pound the city.

"But I don't see that happening because I think everybody has been briefed -- over and over."

(Editing by Sue Pleming and David Storey)