Hitting the Pause Button on Afghanistan
If you are wondering why the Obama administration is suddenly having serious second thoughts about poring more troops into Afghanistan, here’s the short version. A lot has changed in the past few months. Here are the big three:
1. The Flawed Afghan Election
Instead of the recent elections conferring legitimacy on the government of Hamid Karzai, the widespread fraud has undermined confidence in the central government, in a country by the way, that has never really had any functioning central government. So instead of supporting a popularly-elected regime, the U.S. is seen even more as the outside occupying force that has installed a puppet president. No matter the reality, the perception is very problematic.
2. The More Effective, Resurgent Taliban
The Taliban has been on the rebound for years, but in the just last few months it’s shown an amazing ability to plan and execute increasingly sophisticated attacks. It is well-funded, and has installed a shadow government in may provinces that has been able to intimidate or in some cases win over the civilian population. My Pentagon sources say the shadow government even has a system of “ombudsmen” to whom average Afghans can lodge complaints if they feel mistreated. If a Taliban leader is judged guilty of abuse, he is punished. The power and influence of the Talban has grown dramatically, just since Gen. Stanley McChrystal took over.
3. The Sobering McChrystal Assessment
President Obama and Defense Secretary Gates dispatched Gen. McChrystal to Afghanistan because, as an expert in counterinsurgency, they thought him best equipped to figure out how to turn things around. They asked McChrystal what needed to done, and what he needs to do it. And they got clear-eyed assessment of how bad things are how long it will take to turn the tide. Now Mssrs. Obama and Gates are asking the key question: what will this massive and potentially long-term investment achieve? If the goal is keeping al Qaeda on the defensive, and preventing a safe haven for terrorists, is building Afghanistan into a nation really the way to achieve that.
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These are not easy questions. Gates was at the CIA, and helped funnel money to the Mujahedeen fighters to defeated the Soviet army. He’s well aware of how a well-funded insurgency can defeat a superpower, especially if it is seen as an occupying force. And despite the best efforts of the brightest military minds, increasingly, that’s how U.S. and NATO forces are seen.
No significant new troops will be coming from NATO countries who already feel hoodwinked into a bloody protracted war under the false pretense that they would be peacekeepers in war that was already won, and in the mopping-up stage. That was another eye-opening aspect of McChrystal unvarnished report. NATO, despite the valiant efforts of a few countries, such as Britain, Canada, and the Netherlands, has been an abject failure in adapting to counterinsurgency tactics.
The feeling at the Pentagon is “all in or all out.” Both courses have real, significant risks for the future security of the United States. But the president also knows other commanders-in-chief have blindly followed the advice of top military commanders with disastrous results.
I don’t envy the president on this one. I hope he makes the right call. (I wish I knew what that was.) But we may never know. Or if we do find out, it could well be too late.
Tags: Afghanistan, McChrystal, Strategy
