Obama's Afghan Dilemma

The Nation: Can He Succeed By Scaling Down Bush's Rhetoric, Negotiating And Adding Troops?

(The Nation)  This column was written by
Robert Dreyfuss.

---

President-elect Barack Obama says that Afghanistan is "the right war." "It's time to heed the call from General [David] McKiernan and others for more troops," Obama said in late October, referring to the US commander in Afghanistan. "That's why I'd send at least two or three additional combat brigades to Afghanistan." He's coupled that with tough talk about hitting Al Qaeda anywhere, including next door in Pakistan. "If we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act, and we will take them out," Obama said in the second of his three debates with John McCain. "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush Al Qaeda."

Despite such rhetoric, however, nearly two years ago Obama began assembling a cast of experts steeped in the intricacies of South Asian affairs, and they have provided him with a far richer and more sophisticated view of the Afghanistan-Pakistan tangle than emerged in the campaign. "The format of presidential debates does not lend itself to a nuanced discussion," says Bruce Riedel, wryly. A former CIA specialist on South Asia who served on the National Security Council under Presidents Clinton and Bush, Riedel led an advisory task force on Afghanistan-Pakistan for Obama. Interviews with Riedel and other Obama advisers--who made it clear they were not speaking for the president-elect--suggest that Obama intends to reorient US policy in the region significantly, and a key plank in that reorientation includes negotiations with the enemy. But assertions by the US command and the Obama team that we can both "surge" and negotiate overlook the glaring reality that sending more troops into the Afghan quagmire and urging the Pakistani government to escalate the war it is fighting against its own people will make the crisis worse, not better.

The outlines of Obama's strategy, which aren't likely to be articulated fully until after the inauguration, include a repudiation of the strident "global war on terror" rhetoric that marked President Bush's years and that only inflamed Muslim attitudes toward the United States. Campaign sloganeering aside, Obama may try to curtail the indiscriminate use of air power in Afghanistan against often ill-defined targets ("just air raiding villages and killing civilians" was how he put it in 2007), though how he'll do that while adding more troops and escalating the war isn't clear. He'll slow down, if not halt, the provocative cross-border attacks into Pakistani tribal areas against insurgent bases, even as he reserves the right to hit bin Laden. The incoming administration will take steps to strengthen the fledgling civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari in Pakistan against the machinations of the Pakistani army and its Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), which maintains covert ties to a wide range of extremist groups, including the Taliban. And it will support a major boost in economic aid to both countries.

Nearly all of Obama's advisers--along with members of a parallel task force at the Center for American Progress, a think tank likely to be the source of many Obama appointees--insist that a central part of a new US policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan must be to facilitate a peace process between Pakistan and India, its giant neighbor to the east. For decades, Pakistan's military and the ISI have lent covert support to Islamist terrorist groups, in Afghanistan and in the disputed territory of Kashmir, as part of a strategy of asymmetric warfare against India. A Pakistan-India accord would strengthen Pakistan's civilian government and undercut the rationale for the army and ISI's ties to the Taliban, allied Afghan Islamist warlords and Kashmiri Islamist militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, suspected of involvement in the Mumbai terror attack. Wendy Chamberlin, US ambassador to Pakistan on 9/11 and a member of Obama's Pakistan task force, is a strong supporter of efforts to forge a Pakistan-India accord. "I argued for it [in 2002]," she says. And I got dismissed."

Many of Obama's advisers are open to the notion of bringing Iran into the mix, pointing out that Iran was helpful in 2001 in building the original coalition behind Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Iran's role was also highlighted in a September report by a private working group led by Richard Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state, and Lee Hamilton, co-chair of the 9/11 Commission. They suggested connecting Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Iran in a regional economic community, concluding, "The U.S. should...reconsider its opposition to the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline project." Tariq Ali, a British-Pakistani scholar and author of The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power, has called for creation of a South Asian Union to facilitate a regional economic resurgence.

Even as they favor eventual talks with "reconcilable" elements of the Taliban movement, some of Obama's advisers and Gen. David Petraeus, the Centcom commander, defend their call for a surge by arguing that their first priority is to stabilize Afghanistan militarily. "Trying to divide your enemy is always a smart thing to do," says Riedel. "But until we break the momentum that the Taliban has today, where they feel that they're the winner, I don't see that you have any credible chance of persuading even a small number of Taliban to break. They think they're winning, and if you look at the numbers, you can make a pretty convincing case."

In the first ten months of this year, 255 US and NATO troops were killed in Afghanistan, more than all those who died in the first four years of the war in Afghanistan put together. Entire swaths of southern Afghanistan, in provinces along the Pakistan border south and east of Kabul, are controlled by the Taliban and their allies. Lately they have been able to strike with impunity even within Kabul, the Afghan capital. The CIA has been warning for more than two years that Afghanistan was spinning out of control. A forthcoming National Intelligence Estimate, representing the views of sixteen US intelligence agencies, warns that Afghanistan is in a "downward spiral" and, according to the New York Times, "casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban's influence there." The enemy has also evolved as a fighting force. Already by 2006, according to a report for West Point by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the Taliban were fielding battalion-size units of more than 400 fighters. In some provinces the Taliban and their allies are creating a parallel state, appointing governors and provincial officials and establishing Sharia-style courts.

The counterinsurgency is made all the more difficult by the nature of the enemy, an exceedingly complex, multiheaded Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It goes far beyond Mullah Omar's Taliban and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda. "Calling it the Taliban is a failure to understand what's going on," says Seth Jones, an expert on Afghanistan and terrorism at the RAND Corporation. "It's a movement, not an organization," explains Chas Freeman, president of the Middle East Policy Council and a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia. "What we conveniently have been labeling 'the Taliban' is a phenomenon that includes a lot of people simply on the Islamic right." In all, the US military has identified at least fourteen separate insurgent organizations in Afghanistan, and according to Riedel, there are as many as fifty separate Islamist formations in neighboring Pakistan [see Anand Gopal, page 17, for more on the insurgency].

At the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Anthony Cordesman, a sober-minded, conservative military analyst, sounded the alarm. "We are running out of time," he wrote. "We currently are losing, and the trends have been consistent since 2004...we face a crisis in the field--right now." The situation, he said, is far more urgent than anything that can be solved by economic aid or nation-building efforts. "At least during 2009-10, priority must be given to warfighting needs." McKiernan, the US commander, has called for at least four more brigades, perhaps as many as 25,000 troops. He warned that the mission in Afghanistan will require a "sustained commitment" lasting many years, and the United States has announced plans to help more than double the size of the Afghan National Army (ANA), to 134,000 troops. "This is a decades-long project," says Ashley Tellis, a former National Security Council specialist on South Asia, who adds that it will take at least ten years before the United States can withdraw and let the ANA fight its own battles. "The transition alone will take a decade, until you can switch to the ANA," he says.

But surging troops into Afghanistan would be akin to sending the fabled 600 into the valley of death. As in Vietnam, tens of thousands more troops will only provide the Taliban with many more targets, sparking Pashtun nationalist resistance and inspiring more recruits for the insurgency. Advocates of sending additional US forces into this maelstrom have yet to articulate exactly how another 25,000 can turn the tide. Tariq Ali says that pacifying the country would require at least 200,000 more troops, beyond the 62,000 US and NATO forces there now, and that it would necessitate laying waste huge parts of Afghanistan. Many Afghan watchers consider the war unwinnable, and they point out that in the 1980s the Soviet Union, with far more troops, had engaged in a brutal nine-year counterinsurgency war--and lost. British Ambassador to Afghanistan Sherard Cowper-Coles has warned against precisely the escalation that Obama and Petraeus advocate. Sending more troops, he says, "would have perverse effects: it would identify us even more strongly as an occupation force and would multiply the targets [for the insurgents]." A top British general, Brig. Mark Carleton-Smith, says, "We're not going to win this war.... It's about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat."

"What began as a punitive raid aimed at beheading Al Qaeda and chastising its Afghan household staff has somehow morphed--with no real discussion or debate--into a prolonged effort to pacify Afghanistan and transform its society," says Freeman. "This moving of the goal posts gratified neoconservatives and liberal interventionists alike. Our new purpose became giving Afghanistan a centrally directed state--something it had never had. We now fight to exclude reactionary Muslims from a role in governing the new Afghanistan." Freeman suggests that this is an untenable goal, and that it is time to co-opt local authorities and enlist regional allies in search of a settlement.

Those who insist the war is winnable, including US and NATO commanders, also say that it can't be won without taking the war across the border to Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan's tribal areas, an escalation that's already under way. But this poses a whole new set of problems. The situation in Pakistan is only slightly less dire than in Afghanistan. The country emerged this year from nearly a decade under a US-backed military dictatorship and faces a daunting set of challenges. A multipronged insurgency based in the tribal areas is spreading its influence into the neighboring North-West Frontier Province, and it has reached all the way to Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, where assassinations and suicide bombings occur regularly. The new government is weak and divided, with little or no control over the Pakistani army and ISI. And its economy is virtually bankrupt: with inflation at 25 percent and vast unemployment, the country is desperately seeking $10 billion to $15 billion in immediate financial aid.

[allzwell]

WE ELECT A NON-AMERICAN,NON=CHRISTIAN WITH NO EXPERIENCE TO SAVE AMERICA. WHAT THE HECK WERE WE THINKING.

Posted by chad55555 at 08:59 AM : Dec 07, 2008

You idiot (and your last two sentences [above] prove it beyond all doubt)... he''s not president yet!

[chad55555]

Where is the pull out he promised everybody ? My neighbors have lost their home and jobs. People are telling their kids NO CHRISTMAS because they don''t have health care and no money for medicine. Bring the troops home to what, no jobs, no health care no future.How long will the average good person stand by and watch their wife and children go without health care and medicine,food and a home. The experts have put us in this mess now all they can do is promises they can''t keep,tell us it will get better,known ir will only get worse.It''snot just a country,like 1930''s.NOW IT"S THE WHOLE WORLD,HOW LONG BEFORE RUSSIA AND CHNA DECIDE TO TAKE WHAT THEIR PEOPLE NEEED TO SURVIVE.WHAT DO WE DO WE ELECT,WE ELECT A NON-AMERICAN,NON=CHRISTIAN WITH NO EXPERIENCE TO SAVE AMERICA. WHAT THE HECK WERE WE THINKING.

[markangeloo]

Dont worry U nay sayers
Barack will rub the neo-cons face in it !!
Osama Bin Laden will surrender to him,the new commander in chief,
the economy will swing back
& the elephants will go back to the jungle,
away from their three ring circus show.

[chad55555]

What makes you think this man can fix anything,are you so easy brain washed.This person can not create one job,he can''t stop any war all he can do is talk loud,take advantage of being black at this time in history,America should hope and pray to the one and only Christian God he don;t sell us out to the Muslims in the middle east and Africa,they did say their man has become president of the USA and had party after party. There will be change but looks like change for the worse in America. Just food for thought, HOW DID AMERICA GET IN THIS SHAPE,WE STAND FOR NOTHING AND FALL FOR EVERYTHING.

[tiredofthebs]

Okay OBAMA ..... I''m just startin'' to warm up to you. Don''t make a bad decision now. Bush (the 1st) provided the Taliban with the weapons & training they are using NOW against US forces (back during the Soviet Invasion). We really had NO RIGHT to overthrow the TALIBAN because they gave Bin Laden sanctuary whether we liked it or not. The SWISS will need heroine, and heroine is essential to the AFGHAN economy. I''m sure they (TALIBAN) are ready to fight ''til the death. Expect MANY MORE casualties in our armed forces in AFGHANISTAN.

[grimreap21]

that is if he can produce a birth certificate. If he can''''t the speculation will be over sooner.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by runningralph at 08:50 PM : Dec 05, 2008

Got Factcheck.com

He has already produced the birth certificate.

[runningralph]

All the speculation about what Obama will do will be over soon. He will be in office in 6 and 1/2 weeks, that is if he can produce a birth certificate. If he can''t the speculation will be over sooner.

[grimreap21]

"It''s a movement, not an organization,"

And if 3 people a day do it, they may think it''s an organization. And if 50 people do it, I mean if 50 people a day walk in sing a bar of Alice''s Restaurant and walk out, they may think it''s movement. And that''s what it is, the Alice''s Restaurant movement.

We should have finished this "War" a long time ago. But W had to avenge his daddy.

[born2hunt7]

Mr Obama will find out soon that he will have to withdraw most of the promises he made while he was running.Cut and run is something that will be far away from his wishes. These people have swear to destroy our way of life and talking with them at the table will do nothing but extend the conflict. Giving money to help will not work neither just LBJ discovered on the war in Vietnam.We all know the result.

[alanrobisch]

The Republicans are cowards, they go kill women and children for rich oil execs. Shame, shame.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by noloyalisti at 06:59 PM : Dec 05, 2008
+ report abuse

You are one of the reasons I rarely post here anymore. You are partisan and do not have any insight and find it necessary to insult people to make your point.

[noloyalisti]

I was the lying sack of chickenhawk Bush who cut and ran in Afghanistan. It was the GOP who voted en mass to not go after Bush''s friend Bin Laden.

The Republicans are cowards, they go kill women and children for rich oil execs. Shame, shame.

[tburzio]

If we have not won the war and we have not lost, what then?
The best of all possible situations, Conrad, the war will go on, and on!

- Battle of the Bulge (1965)