McChrystal, Obama and Afghanistan

The drama that captivated the American capital for thirty-six hours last week could well be, in the words of Churchill, not “the end of the beginning,” but rather “the beginning of the end.” The dismissal of Stanley McChrystal, the general commanding NATO forces in Afghanistan, was inevitable following the publication of a long article in Rolling Stone magazine, in which he was acting like a Somalian or Afghan warlord. Any other action by Barack Obama would have meant admitting to the insubordination of a soldier to the commander in chief. But the departure of the American proconsul in Afghanistan, the apostle of references for reinforcements, perhaps marks a turning point in this war that has just surpassed Vietnam in its duration and that kills 10 Americans every day.

McChrystal is gone, replaced by David Petraeus, the best soldier of his generation. But the momentum in favor of the escalation of the war to get rid of the Taliban’s capacity to do harm and in order to reconstruct the country by giving it the structures of government is running out. The Americans, a majority by now, no longer believe that this war is costing a billion dollars per week can achieve its objectives. We only have to look at the fiasco of Marja, a city General McChrystal affirmed he would take back in a few weeks. The offensive, launched in February, is still not finished. That situation in Kandahar has not changed. The Pashtun majority no longer wants to be protected by foreign forces.

In December, Obama will without a doubt make an examination of the progress of this war. But America is cornered. On the one hand, it is a war that is going nowhere, but with a puppet government in place, as one would have said at the time of the Vietnam War. On the other hand, in the event of an American departure, [the region will be left with] a Taliban that has become more radicalized than in 2001, the armed wing of al-Qaeda in the region, and the Pashtun will ally with a Pakistan that has its eyes on the Hindu Kush. To leave would be a catastrophe not only for the United States and the Western world, but also for the Afghans handed over to the Taliban and the ethnic groups that are sharing the country. To stay would be a form of slow agony. All that is left to do is pray that General David Petraeus will succeed in Afghanistan as he succeeded in Iraq. It is improbable, but it’s the only way out, however narrow it may be.