Will Afghanistan be Obama's Iraq?
Robert Shrum
Afghanistan has been a footnote in a presidential transition process celebrated for its daring, speed and sure-footed sense of direction. Obama has rightly focused on the troubled economy, consciously echoing the resolve of earlier presidents who faced recession or depression. The nation calls for “action—and action now,” he recently proclaimed, reviving a phrase from FDR’s first inaugural address that, initially, had commanded far more attention than the injunction that the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Obama wants his presidency to be judged not by the mess he’s inheriting but by the measures he intends to take. His warning that things are “likely to get worse before they get better” echoes JFK’s 1961 State of the Union message: “There will be further setbacks before the tide is turned.” On election night, he told the country that the task would not be finished in “one year or one term”—another echo, this time of Kennedy’s inaugural statement that “all this will not be finished in the first 100 days nor . . . in the first 1000 days.”
I believe Obama, who appears to be as perceptive a student of past presidencies as he was of past campaigns, will achieve a Rooseveltian transformation in domestic policy. This will involve massive infrastructure investment, an energy revolution and health care reform—sweeping changes that, I predict, Republicans would pay a devastating price for opposing. Obama’s program is likely to prevail and Obama’s America is likely to be a different and renewed country. At his Sunday press conference, he offered a confident assertion that once his changes are in place, America will emerge from this crisis “leaner, meaner, and more prosperous.”
There is less cause for confidence about Obama’s other crisis—the faltering war in Afghanistan. Indeed, Afghanistan has the potential to become what Iraq was for so long for Bush—a quagmire without exit. There is an emerging consensus on U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and a redeployment of troops to Afghanistan. But for now the new troops will be deployed in provinces just outside Kabul to protect the increasingly threatened capital. This version of the “enclave strategy” once proposed for Vietnam is no more than a holding action. How can we rout the terrorists and the Taliban from mountain sanctuaries if our enemies control 80 percent of the country?
This is precisely the problem that faced the Soviet Union’s 100,000 troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The point here is not moral equivalence; the problem is that today the United States and our allies don’t even approach numerical parity with the Soviets, who fought a scorched earth war without any of our self-imposed constraints. Even if we dispatch many more troops, intelligence analysts warn, we will never have enough to control the daunting Afghan geography, fertile ground for terrorists, warlords and poppy plants. In addition, we’re warned, heavier force levels and escalating violence will only add to the alienation of an already war-weary population.
Obama and his re-enlisted Secretary of Defense seem to comprehend this; Robert Gates already has a Pentagon review underway that looks beyond Bush’s discredited obsession with disproportionately military solutions. The new answer, or hope, is not just more troops, but “soft power.” Applied to Afghanistan, this means economic reconstruction, jobs, schools, credible regional government and more culturally sensitive uses of armed force. In other words, defeat the enemy by making friends.
The difficulty, of course, is that the enemy won’t cooperate; with truck bombings, suicide blasts and no holds barred they will counter soft power with intensified terrorism. If they succeed, what do we try next?
John Kerry may not have become Secretary of State, but he is Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which in recent decades has lost its historic role of educating Americans about our challenges and options overseas. He should restore the committee’s luster—and its purpose—by holding hearings on Afghanistan. A dose of realism here would be a fitting end to Bush’s delusion and bravado and perhaps to some easy assumptions on the Democratic side, as well.
I was part of the 2004 Kerry campaign, which elevated the idea of Afghanistan as “the right war” to conventional Democratic wisdom. This was accurate as criticism of the Bush Administration, but it was also reflexive and perhaps by now even misleading as policy. Today, we need a hard-headed examination of what’s still possible, especially in light of the India-Pakistan confrontation, which could throw the entire subcontinent into further turmoil.
The incoming President seems to sense that unconditional victory may be beyond our reach. On Meet The Press Sunday he spoke of “a very limited goal”—to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base for terrorist operations. Even that will be difficult. Obama’s National Security Advisor, retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones, once said he knew how to get into Afghanistan, the challenge would be getting out. The strategy not pursued was a quick and massive post-9/11 strike, followed by a withdrawal that would have adjured nation-building and left Afghanistan to a new band of semi-medieval rulers willing to foreswear terrorism against the United States.
If a combination of military power and soft power can’t turn this war around, that may be roughly where we end up. It would be a cruel outcome for the people of Afghanistan, especially its women, who would face another round of grinding oppression. No President could give up the fight to capture Osama bin Laden and close down the terrorist redoubts. But a pragmatic President may be forced to conclude that we can’t remake Afghanistan in our own image—that it’s time to negotiate a “very limited” deal that advances our security while freeing us from a rocky quagmire half a world away.
Before too long, that may be the only option we have left.
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5 Comments
Posted by Kathryn Hall, Tuesday, December 9, 2008, 9:55 am Anyone wanting to get a glimpse into the culture of Afghanistan and what we are up against in thinking we are going to change it needs to read The Place in Between by Rory Stewart, who walked post 9-11 through Afghanistan from west to east, to Kabul. Every village he encountered was different. Afghanistan is no cohesive country, and as far as I can tell, never was. To say that Karzai "lets warlords" dominate is to not understand how compartmenatalized Afghanistan is and probably always has been. Americans think Afghanistan (and Pakistan and Iraq) are cohesive countries (or were). They do not understand that these countries are fragmented into many "minority" self-overseeing jurisdictions and cultures and languages that are NOT overseen by some individual government. All the rhetoric, therefore, is very very misleading. It's not us against them. It's us in the midst of whoever arms a region and who's paying them this year. I would think education is the longrange answer, but that education has to be a two-way street, for we are as ignorant as they. And it will never happen in my lifetime. This ignorance has been going on for thousands of years. READ, people.
Posted by Steve LeMay, Tuesday, December 9, 2008, 11:52 am This is an insightful article followed by insightful comments. Some of the best posts and exchanges I've seen anywhere. Thanks.
Posted by Uncle Sam, Tuesday, December 9, 2008, 1:01 pm Reflexive action was a big mistake after 9/11. Ignore culture, logistics and lack of intelligence and you have Vietnam all over again, all the while trying to justify unobtainable goals that make for great sound bites, but that end up killing far more civilians than an enemy who is determined to outlast you with hit and run tactics. Obama and more democrats in Congress were voted in because reality has been absent these last eight years coupled with an administration characterized by hubris and inflexibilty. Police actions, as defined differently than conventional wars, involve far more resources not usually justified by the ends unless all conditions are met that can define the enemy, track it down, kill it and prevent its renewal or resurgence. There are so many conditions not met that define both actions in both countries as holding actions and little else. The surge may be holding back the tide of sectarian hatred marked by monthly bombings of civialians and security forces, but threatens to increase once forces are reduced. Maybe the answer is massive recruitment and training in both countries via a draft; funding from Iraq to continue stabilization it's own country needs to come from oil revenue.. Big brother (the US) must now let little brother ride the bike solo even if it means set backs. A culture that refuses to evolve into one of peace and compromise until more death and destruction move the great majority to national unity, cannot expect the continued sacrifices of a benevolent occupier for the decades it would require. Afghanistan is an untamed frontier territory that has little to offer the west other than an oil/ opium pipeline feeding its addictions, while enriching suppliers not interested in anything other than money or militantcy. This boulder is a lot tougher to push up hill. Which brings us to Iraq. Realistic expectations dictate a resolve to not follow an unrealistic path towards unrealistic goals until the time is right. The United States must make time its friend, no different than embedded insurgent forces have done in the past and are taking advantage of now. All uncompromising forces (led by militant clerics, militias, warlords and foreign fighters) must eventually become extinct if social evolution can take place at a more rapid pace; until this is accomplished by the citizens of Iraq, American lives and resources will continue to be wasted. To me the strategy of a continous effort and expenditure of resources before this condition is met, is analogous to putting the cart before the donkey.
Posted by Nick D. Maceus, Wednesday, December 10, 2008, 9:42 am Unwittingly perhaps, Mr. Shrum's article highlights several of the problems the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has created. Given the historic ferocity of Afghani's for maintaining their own sovereignty (against the insuperable odds including but not limited to the Soviet Union, the British Crown, and before that, the Median and Persian Empires, Alexander the Great, Kushans, Hepthalites, Arabs, Turks, and Mongols ) and their willingness to trade their lives for independence by force of arms, there is no reasonable expectation that the same policy which failed in Vietnam suddenly is now A-OK for prompt implementation. The only actual military solution which should work is as obvious as it is obviously unacceptable. We need help. The US and NATO never will have either the required military manpower or, now, the financial resources to occupy and subdue Afghanistan. Period. Who does? Ah, China. Who will? India and Russia. And that's the absurdity. Were the Chinese, Russians and Indians truly our most trusted allies against an implacable foe, rather than regional geopolitical rivals, a massive coalition could be formed to sweep Afghanistan of its dangerous internal forces. But we didn't want Russia in there before, we don't want China in there now, and Pakistan is less than thrilled about a huge Indian Army camped heavily armed and combat-ready on its doorstep. Leaving President Obama with what tenable alternatives? None. In all the years this conflict has been maintained no new idea, hard or soft, has risen to prominence because it satisfied enough of the objectives we nowhere discuss in public. The idea that John Kerry as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has an "historic role of educating Americans about our challenges and options overseas" is just more buck-passing on the real issue - why keep playing an unwinnable game with no clear objective and ever worsening odds? - Nick Maceus
Posted by JD, Friday, December 12, 2008, 4:42 pm Don't even try to cut the troops' legs out from under them on THIS war too. There are many honorable Dems and others who opposed this war responsibly. There are many who did not. Don't you dare say this was the right war and then when the election is won, say "maybe we were wrong and this isn't such a good idea." Obama campaigned on the premise that we should have focused on Afghanistan, and that he would do so as president. I hope that he will have more spine than the one who wrote this column, and the many others who would pull out of this war too, even after all their words in previous times.
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