The “AfPak” Disaster

As usual, Barack Obama’s announcement of planned U.S. troop reductions in Afghanistan didn’t lack for nice-sounding phrases: “[T]onight, we take comfort in knowing that the tide of war is receding,” he said in his usual from-the-pulpit style. In rhetorically distancing himself from the Bush administration he added, “America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home.” The term “nation building” was the principle idea in the neoconservative “Project for the New American Century” and applied to the replacement of foreign rulers with U.S.-friendly governments. Obama believes, to the contrary, that nation building must first begin at home. On the social welfare level, America remains a very underdeveloped nation.

The president said that the United States simply could no longer afford its wars. “Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times.” With that, Obama was reacting to the public’s war-weary mood. Republicans, until recently flag-wavers for a militant U.S. chauvinism, had begun using this public sentiment against the Obama administration.

But Obama’s liberal supporters also appeared mainly unimpressed by his clever speech, especially since the notion that the tide of war was ebbing is by no means a given. By year’s end, 10,000 troops are to be withdrawn, with an additional 23,000 to follow by the summer of 2012. That will still leave 68,000 troops in place, more than were in the country at the beginning of the Obama administration. Additionally, the U.S.-led alliance in Libya is committed to another military adventure. Even if the phraseology of the Bush administration is no longer in vogue, the fact is that nation building is still the order of the day wherever it strikes those of a bellicose nature. The first non-white American president has come on the scene to ensure white supremacy in the world, not to end it.

Obama’s predecessor didn’t begin the campaign in the Hindu Kush with the goal of neutralizing Osama bin Laden but with the objective of stabilizing a strategically sensitive region in order to strengthen control over Pakistan. Ten years after the fall of the Taliban regime, however, the situation for the invading forces is worse than it was before the beginning of hostilities. The Taliban, driven out as a sectarian monster, has now returned as a national liberation force, and Pakistan’s alienation from the Western powers has never been as great as it is today. The “AfPak” concept has proven to be a grandiose failure. Barack Obama is trying to salvage whatever may be salvaged. His plans to withdraw are designed to court the electorate. Whether he can succeed against the pro-war lobby is doubtful.