A Strategy Minus the Goose Bumps

Which is the right road? U.S. think tanks discuss Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan because, after eight years, victory over the Taliban is still not on the horizon.

U.S. and NATO forces are already into their eighth year of the Afghanistan war and still there’s no prospect for success. The United States Congress and many think tanks are saying that there should be increased political focus on Afghanistan – often just referred to as “the other war.”

During his campaign for office Barack Obama led the way in saying the war in Afghanistan was the “real war” – not the war in Iraq – and that he would send two to three combat brigades to the Hindu Kush, bringing troop strength there up to about 65,000. And, he added, he would pursue al-Qaeda whenever and wherever necessary, even next door, meaning Pakistan. He went so far as to threaten Islamabad, saying that if Osama bin-Laden were found to be hiding out in the border areas of Pakistan and the Pakistanis neglected to act, the U.S. would invade.

Before his election, Obama didn’t shrink from saber-rattling rhetoric. Such talk raised goose bumps among Afghanistan experts and did little to inspire their confidence. Since taking office, however, Obama has exercised verbal restraint on the Afghan situation. What his actual strategy will be, however, remains a matter of speculation.

This triggered an avalanche of position papers, government reports and think tank studies. Interviews with Obama’s team of Afghanistan experts, among them former CIA South Asian specialist and terrorism expert, Bruce Riedel, seem to indicate that the President has at least been warned not to put all his eggs in the military basket. Obama’s team has been hinting for months that his efforts in the region will depend heavily on negotiations with the Taliban and increased action against opium cultivation.

Administration critics, however, think the formula “troop surge and negotiate” is flawed because Afghanistan is not Iraq. They also argue that ramping up troop strength and applying more pressure on the Pakistani government will make matters worse rather than better. An escalation of the war without a backlash from the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan is probably just a pious hope, experts say. Opinion polls in Islamic nations already show people there think the United States is the number one evil.

Some analysts, including Greg Bruno of the Council on Foreign Relations, are of the opinion that Obama should redefine the mission in Afghanistan. Washington’s original goal of creating a stable, free and democratic Afghanistan is unattainable. Smaller fish need to be fried, they say. What’s crucial in the unanimous opinion of military commanders is that there are, indeed, any fish to fry at all. General David Petraeus says that military victories only make sense if they translate directly into infrastructure and workable government.

In any case, the president is garnering praise for heeding the advice of his security adviser General James Jones and appointing Richard Holbrook as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. But Holbrook will find a somewhat dismal and hopeless situation in the region, in Bruce Riedel’s opinion.

Critics say it’s wrong that India wasn’t included as another of Holbrooke’s responsibilities. Daniel Markey of the Council on Foreign Relations says that the crisis cannot be solved without India, since Pakistan accuses India of wanting to make Afghanistan into a vassal state. Besides that, India and Pakistan are themselves a cause of instability in the region because of their dispute over Kashmir. The Pakistani civil government under President Asif Ali Zardari won’t be strengthened until India and Pakistan reach a Kashmir agreement. That would help toward ending the cozy relations between al-Qaeda and the Pakistani military. In Markey’s opinion, the Taliban can’t be defeated without the cooperation of the Pakistani intelligence services and military.

What the American president doesn’t have much of is time. Every meter of territory newly won by the Taliban makes them more self-confident and the Afghan people less so. According to Riedel, Holbrooke’s most pressing task is to avoid giving the impression that American forces are about to lose “the other war.”

The view that more pressure must be put on the corruption-plagued and ineffective government of Hamid Karzai is clearly embodied in the person of Vice-President Joe Biden who travels today to the Munich Security Conference in the hope of gaining broader support among NATO allies for America’s initiative in Afghanistan.

The downside to that Munich meeting could be what America’s new strategy actually looks like.