Friday
Mar272009
Two-Step Analysis of Mr Obama's War Plan: Step Two in Afghanistan
Friday, March 27, 2009 at 10:51
Latest Post: Mr Obama’s War for/on Pakistan-Afghanistan - Holes in the Middle
Related Post: Mr Biden’s War? An Afghanistan-Pakistan Strategy from 2007
Related Post: Two-Step Analysis of Mr Obama’s War Plan: Step One in Pakistan
Related Post: Mr Obama’s War - Today Proves Pakistan is Number One
There's a cold reality in today's Obama Administration war plan, with its projection of Pakistan as Crisis Number One. Yet there's also a bit of magic: in its presentation of Crisis Number Two in Afghanistan, the Administration has given the media two marvellous diversions.
AFGHANISTAN: THE HOLE IN THE MIDDLE
The first diversion is the headline of 4000 US trainers for Afghan security forces. This will enable the Administration to proclaim that its plan is to ensure Afghanistan can protect and police itself, offering the long-term prospect of a drawdown of American forces. In reality, however, this token deployment will do little to confront the immediate situation with the insurgency.
It does, however, allow Obama and Co., after the showdown compromise with the military earlier this year over troop increases, to show that it is still committed to "tough love" in Afghanistan. The commanders have gotten most of the 30,000 extra troops they wanted, and the Administration is making it well-known that this is not an "exit strategy".
The second bit of magic is the proclamation that the Administration, focusing on the threat of Al Qa'eda, is moving away from the Bush strategy of "democracy promotion" in Afghanistan. This is --- let me see if I can find the right academic word here --- rubbish.
The Bush Administration, beyond its surface proclamations of "liberation" after the fall of the Taliban, never saw spread of democracy as the mission in Afghanistan. Once it had installed the "right" leader in Hamid Karzai (yes, I know the obvious irony, given today's situation), the Bushmen --- as any examination of their approach to "nation-building" will establish in about two second --- just wanted a military presence to keep the Taliban in check while they moved on to their top goal of knocking off Saddam Hussein.
How, then, to read this convenient fiction? It has less to do with the strategy against the Afghan insurgency and more to do with the American strategy vis-a-vis the Government in Kabul and, beyond that, some folks in Pakistan.
Sharp-eyed readers will note that there is nothing in the advance spin on the Obama plan on possible talks with "former" insurgents, even though this has been in the wind for some time. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates held out the prospect last year, and it has been conflated with the Iraq precedent of the magical "surge" and linking up with Sunni groups.
But who is to talk to these "former" insurgents or "moderate" Taliban, given that is unlikely that these groups will go into direct discussions with the US? One possibility is that President Karzai could set himself up as the interlocutor --- indeed, he has been pressing for this for some time --- but Washington no longer trusts their former front-man. Another possibility is that the negotiations could go via Pakistan, but that is even more problematic. A former CIA official spelled it out for Time magazine:
But the US doesn't want to get out of Afghanistan, at least not in the near-future, so it needs a "reliable" political centre to hold together its strategy.
And that is precisely what it does not have. The Karzai Administration is not to be trusted, but Washington has no successor lined up (thus its very "un-democratic" admission that Karzai will win re-election, whether that comes in April or August, and there really should be a "Chief Executive" or "Prime Minister" to offset him). The US has given up on NATO, since European countries will not increase their military investment, which rules out another external lever (if there was any prospect it might work) for change in Kabul.
So Washington is stuck putting more troops into Afghanistan with no strategy to underpin the commitment.
The alternative is to start striking agreements with local political leaders --- again under whatever label you want to give them --- but the US is not even in the lead position in those manoeuvres. Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and of course Pakistan can claim more of a foothold in various parts of Afghanistan. Perhaps more importantly, the illusion that the US can control a local movement --- the greatest magic trick of all, carried out in Petraeus Wonderland in Iraq from 2007 --- looks shaky here.
Of course, this reading may be premature. It may all come clear, without smoke and mirrors, when Hillary Clinton addresses the international summit in The Hague next week. But the more I look at this, the more it seems to a leak put out by the Obama Administration in January: if they could put in some troops, it would buy time. And then --- somewhere, somehow, much later --- they might figure out what to do.
Figuring out what to do, however, seems to be a solution via the elimination of the Pakistan "safe havens". If that is true, then more than seven years after 9-11, the magic isn't that Afghanistan is no longer to be a "democracy". The magic is that it has become sideshow.
It's a very expensive, very destructive sideshow, of course, but it's still a supporting act for the main event being set up across the border.
Related Post: Mr Biden’s War? An Afghanistan-Pakistan Strategy from 2007
Related Post: Two-Step Analysis of Mr Obama’s War Plan: Step One in Pakistan
Related Post: Mr Obama’s War - Today Proves Pakistan is Number One
There's a cold reality in today's Obama Administration war plan, with its projection of Pakistan as Crisis Number One. Yet there's also a bit of magic: in its presentation of Crisis Number Two in Afghanistan, the Administration has given the media two marvellous diversions.AFGHANISTAN: THE HOLE IN THE MIDDLE
The first diversion is the headline of 4000 US trainers for Afghan security forces. This will enable the Administration to proclaim that its plan is to ensure Afghanistan can protect and police itself, offering the long-term prospect of a drawdown of American forces. In reality, however, this token deployment will do little to confront the immediate situation with the insurgency.
It does, however, allow Obama and Co., after the showdown compromise with the military earlier this year over troop increases, to show that it is still committed to "tough love" in Afghanistan. The commanders have gotten most of the 30,000 extra troops they wanted, and the Administration is making it well-known that this is not an "exit strategy".
The second bit of magic is the proclamation that the Administration, focusing on the threat of Al Qa'eda, is moving away from the Bush strategy of "democracy promotion" in Afghanistan. This is --- let me see if I can find the right academic word here --- rubbish.
The Bush Administration, beyond its surface proclamations of "liberation" after the fall of the Taliban, never saw spread of democracy as the mission in Afghanistan. Once it had installed the "right" leader in Hamid Karzai (yes, I know the obvious irony, given today's situation), the Bushmen --- as any examination of their approach to "nation-building" will establish in about two second --- just wanted a military presence to keep the Taliban in check while they moved on to their top goal of knocking off Saddam Hussein.
How, then, to read this convenient fiction? It has less to do with the strategy against the Afghan insurgency and more to do with the American strategy vis-a-vis the Government in Kabul and, beyond that, some folks in Pakistan.
Sharp-eyed readers will note that there is nothing in the advance spin on the Obama plan on possible talks with "former" insurgents, even though this has been in the wind for some time. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates held out the prospect last year, and it has been conflated with the Iraq precedent of the magical "surge" and linking up with Sunni groups.
But who is to talk to these "former" insurgents or "moderate" Taliban, given that is unlikely that these groups will go into direct discussions with the US? One possibility is that President Karzai could set himself up as the interlocutor --- indeed, he has been pressing for this for some time --- but Washington no longer trusts their former front-man. Another possibility is that the negotiations could go via Pakistan, but that is even more problematic. A former CIA official spelled it out for Time magazine:
[Pakistani contacts with] people we regard as enemies are not so much trying to aid them against America as preparing for a future when Americans and NATO are no longer in Afghanistan.
But the US doesn't want to get out of Afghanistan, at least not in the near-future, so it needs a "reliable" political centre to hold together its strategy.
And that is precisely what it does not have. The Karzai Administration is not to be trusted, but Washington has no successor lined up (thus its very "un-democratic" admission that Karzai will win re-election, whether that comes in April or August, and there really should be a "Chief Executive" or "Prime Minister" to offset him). The US has given up on NATO, since European countries will not increase their military investment, which rules out another external lever (if there was any prospect it might work) for change in Kabul.
So Washington is stuck putting more troops into Afghanistan with no strategy to underpin the commitment.
The alternative is to start striking agreements with local political leaders --- again under whatever label you want to give them --- but the US is not even in the lead position in those manoeuvres. Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and of course Pakistan can claim more of a foothold in various parts of Afghanistan. Perhaps more importantly, the illusion that the US can control a local movement --- the greatest magic trick of all, carried out in Petraeus Wonderland in Iraq from 2007 --- looks shaky here.
Of course, this reading may be premature. It may all come clear, without smoke and mirrors, when Hillary Clinton addresses the international summit in The Hague next week. But the more I look at this, the more it seems to a leak put out by the Obama Administration in January: if they could put in some troops, it would buy time. And then --- somewhere, somehow, much later --- they might figure out what to do.
Figuring out what to do, however, seems to be a solution via the elimination of the Pakistan "safe havens". If that is true, then more than seven years after 9-11, the magic isn't that Afghanistan is no longer to be a "democracy". The magic is that it has become sideshow.
It's a very expensive, very destructive sideshow, of course, but it's still a supporting act for the main event being set up across the border.
tagged Barack Obama, David Petraeus, George W Bush, Hamid Karzai, NATO, Pakistan, Time in Afghanistan, India & Pakistan
Barack Obama, David Petraeus, George W Bush, Hamid Karzai, NATO, Pakistan, Time in Afghanistan, India & Pakistan
Reader Comments (1)
Who said that democracy was the right way to do things anyway - look where it has got the worlds banking system