FOCUS ON AFGHANISTAN

Bill Breakstone, July 1, 2010

Last week, American Afghan policy leapt back into the headlines after the Rolling Stone article, the firing of General Stanley McChrystal, and the appointment of General David Petraeus as his replacement. In the days following these events, the media has given our Afghan policy intense scrutiny: featured articles in The Economist, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, an hour-long debate on Meet the Press and Fareed Zakaria’s GPS on CNN, and intense coverage on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, among others. Many commentators have noted that the media attention given the personnel changes “on the ground” have served an extremely beneficial role, in that they have focused attention on policy, and the new command’s role in its implementation.

The three key questions that need answering are: (1) Why are we there?; (2) What have we accomplished so far; (3) Why is progress so slow; and (4) What policy changes need to be made?


Background

The United States and NATO forces invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 with the primary objectives of depriving Al-Qaeda its sanctuary and ending the Taliban controlled regime, enabling the election of a representative government representing the Afghan people. Those initial objectives were achieved. However, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda reorganized in Pakistani sanctuaries and began an insurgency that lasts to this day, and has grown stronger over the past years, threatening the stability of the new democratically elected Afghan regime and virtually establishing control of a vast amount of territory in the rugged Afghan countryside.

Senator John McCain said on Meet the Press:”It’s clear the Taliban is a very extremist and very fanatical element, and I think this is true with all insurgencies. But I think you will also find that the majority of the people in Afghanistan do not want the return of the Taliban.” If anyone doubts McCain’s belief, they should just read the novels by Khaled Hosseini The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Many opponents of the war argue that there are now fewer than 200 Al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan today; that may well be true. They, like the Taliban, fled to sanctuaries in Pakistan. However, anyone who believes that should the Taliban return to power in Kabul Al-Qaeda forces would not be back in force is extremely naïve and mistaken, as almost every strategist will point out.

Sebastian Junger, author of the recent book War, said on Meet the Press: Let’s remember some history here. Al-Qaeda was in Afghanistan when they attacked on 9/11. They’re in Pakistan right now because we’re in Afghanistan. You know, if we pulled out, what they have is what they had before 9/11. They have—I mean, when they’re in Pakistan, they’re in the tribal territories. It’s not a—it’s not an area that’s connected very well to the rest of the world. In Afghanistan, they had an airport, they had an economy, and they had a failed state that had no extradition treaties with the rest of the world. So they can do what they want, and there is no way to get at them short of military force. So we pull out—you’re right, they’re in Pakistan, but we pull out, they’re going to be right back in Afghanistan. They have not attacked the West successfully since they had to vacate Afghanistan. “ To which, Tom Ricks added: “I think if you want an endless war, leave Afghanistan right now, and you’ll find us having to go after Al-Qaeda again and again there for decades.”

[Note: Sebastian Junger’s War is a story of war that is much more than a war story. As a correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine, Junger made five trips to Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley in 2007 and 2008, embedded with the 2nd Platoon, Battle Company of the storied 173rd Airborne Brigade. Thomas E. Ricks writes on defense topics and international affairs. He is a Pulitzer Prize winning former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. He is the author of the best-selling Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq and its follow-up The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008. Neither of these writers could be considered “hawks”; both are admired journalists praised for their exhaustive research and impartial stances. Indeed, Ricks Fiasco was a scathing criticism of American foreign Mid-east policy and military leadership.]


The COIN Strategy

Counter Insurgency Strategy (COIN) depends on “in-country” leadership: militarily, diplomatically, and politically. It can only succeed if we win the hearts and minds of the citizens of the country we are trying to help. Most importantly, that includes the national government, the local governments, and the tribal leaders. As Fareed Zakaria said on Sunday “the counterinsurgency strategy depends upon a very close joint implementation of military, political, economic and diplomatic efforts. That is at the heart of it.”

In Afghanistan, those elements are sorely lacking. Retired Army General Barry McCaffrey, on Meet the Press, described the Afghan quagmire as “a political dilemma, not a military one. We have a goofy, incompetent Afghan government. We’re trying to build an Afghan security force and get it done in a very short period of time. None of this is going to work the way we’re going about it. So, again, back to, I think, the congresswoman’s [Barbara Lee—D/CA, of the House Foreign Affairs Committee] remarks, you either got to pull out in a stated time frame with huge negative consequences, potentially, to Pakistan, the Afghans themselves, U.S. foreign policy; or you, you announce that we’re in there until we have a stable political system in Afghanistan.”

As Leslie Gelb wrote in an excellent article in The Daily Beast on June 16th, “Karzai is firing the few officials Americans deem honest and capable. His government barely functions. His army makes very slow progress. His police operation is virtually hopeless. Even as U.S./NATO forces make some headway here and there, little comes in behind them to solidify gains.”

Furthermore, the Afghan government in essence has refused thus far to fully “sign on” to the COIN strategy, and has put individual priorities ahead of national interests and the peoples’ security and welfare. President Karzai is with us one day, hedging his bets the next, back on board and touring Kandahar with American generals the next, then finally negotiating with Pakistan to “cut a deal” with the Taliban. Meanwhile, in Kandahar there is a corrupt local government with Walid Karzai, the President’s brother, at its head. Concurrently, the Taliban sits, waits and carries out terrorist acts against coalition forces and the local population. As Thomas Ricks said, also on Meet the Press, relating a conversation he had with a Taliban leader, “You have the watches; we have the time.”


The Draw-down Deadline

In Afghanistan, as my real estate colleagues and attorneys know, time is of the essence, and a major impediment to the COIN strategy. The deadline for the start of troop withdrawal is August of 2011, 13 months from now. It is becoming increasingly clear that such a relatively tight time frame will be inadequate, and President Obama this week has begun to back away from this deadline. Following in lockstep behind him, General Petraeus, in his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, emphasized that the August 2011 date marks only the start of a transitional period of “contingent-based” military draw-downs.

Senator McCain, and others, takes the position that the Afghan leadership, cognizant of the Obama administration’s August 2011 timeline for the troop drawdown, feels that they have to begin making plans for that eventuality. Thus, Karzai’s feelers to Pakistan about possibly bringing Taliban elements into the Kabul government. In Iraq, the tide turned in favor of coalition forces due in part to the “Sunni Awakening.” There is no parallel in Afghanistan. If Afghans believe that U.S. and NATO forces will be leaving in a relatively short period of time, why should they cooperate with the Americans and risk having their heads chopped off by the Taliban when allied troops are gone.

Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, stated in a June 23rd article that: “The administration’s preference is that U.S. forces should withdraw only at a pace that conditions on the ground justify. This either means that over the next twelve months the effectiveness of Afghan government forces will increase dramatically, both in absolute terms and relative to the Taliban—or that a large number of U.S. forces will remain fighting in Afghanistan for many years to come. Everything about Afghanistan points to the latter as being more likely. The United States has embarked on a policy of state-building in a country with little tradition of a strong state. Making matters worse is that the Afghan government is riddled with corruption and the Taliban has the benefit of a sanctuary in Pakistan, which remains as much of a problem as it is a partner. . . . . The President was wise to act swiftly to replace his theater commander; he should act no less decisively in reviewing the policy.” Or, as an article in The Economist states: “Mr. Obama owes it to the West and to the Afghan people to determine whether COIN can in fact succeed under his best general. The Afghan war may yet end in an ignominious retreat. But nobody should welcome such an outcome.”


Where Do We Go From Here?

The United States and its allies face multi-faceted challenges in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As stated above, we have a totally unreliable partner in Karzai and the Afghan government, characterized by ineptness and corruption; the elections last year were questioned by many for fraud, lending an air of illegitimacy to the mix.

Pakistan exerts little control over the territory used by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban as sanctuaries. Islamabad has neither the commitment nor the military resources to rid those regions of terrorist extremists. Their overriding concern is with India. However, with Taliban attacks inside Pakistan increasing, threatening their internal stability, their stance may change.

Diplomatically, three courses of action are possible, if not probable. First, promote a change of leadership in Kabul that would be more committed to the needs of the Afghan people. Second, come to terms with the Pakistani government that would permit U.S. and NATO forces to overtly attack the terrorists in their sanctuaries. Lastly, set up highest level diplomatic meetings with the foreign ministers of Pakistan, India and Secretary of State Clinton in the hope of gaining mutual assurances that neither country would act against the other should Allied forces take action in Pakistan’s Northwest Provinces, Wariristan and Balochistan.


New Allied Leadership in Afghanistan

Tom Ricks, in his Washington Post op-ed of June 27th wrote that in reaction to the repeated friction between U.S. generals, diplomats and the Iraqi government, “General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker were determined to coordinate their actions. Word went out to subordinates that neither of them would tolerate infighting between civilian and military officials. When the two returned to testify before Congress in September 2007, they showed a united front, key in winning them more time for the war at a moment when congressional leaders such as Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. were saying it was time to “stop the surge and start bringing our troops home.”

“In Kabul, alas, Petraeus will find no such useful ally in the American ambassador. Instead, the top U.S. diplomat there is Karl W. Eikenberry, who relentlessly opposed McChrystal’s initiatives. Unlike Crocker, Eikenberry has no strong base in the State Department and is not steeped in the history and culture of the region. Rather, he is a retired general who in fighting with McChrystal over the past year used many of the same arguments that another American commander, John Abizaid, had used in opposing Petraeus’s approach in Iraq.”

“On top of that, Petraeus will have to deal with Richard C. Holbrooke, who seems to have achieved little as special presidential envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. And the general will face a host government even more troublesome than what he dealt with in Baghdad. Indeed, the two biggest problems the United States faces in Afghanistan are the Karzai government and the Pakistani government—and neither of those really can be addressed by military options.

One wonders whether Crocker can be persuaded to accept an invitation from President Obama to replace Eikenberry, thus bringing the military/diplomatic team that was so successful in Iraq to bear on the Afghan and Pakistani regimes.