Earthly Ambitions

President Obama has reduced his ambitions in Afghanistan to more earthly proportions. The Taliban is no longer a synonym for Al-Qaeda, but a broad term for all kinds of rebels who are not necessarily engaged in terrorism. Simultaneously, Obama has extended the policy to Pakistan, which is crumbling more and more, as the attack on a police school in Lahore today illustrates. In these countries, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda continue to settle in more decisively. On the eve of the “big tent” meeting in the Netherlands, Obama tucked away the “make-ability idealism” of his predecessor Bush, who wanted to construct an embryonic model democracy in Afghanistan.

The policy is now focused on preventing true terrorist groups from getting a hold in Central Asia. The military operation that has been going on for seven years is like the ignition fuel. The “all-encompassing strategy does not only rely on bullets and bombs, but also on agriculturists, doctors and engineers,” says Obama. Therefore, he has not only reserved 17,000 extra troops for the war, but also 4,000 instructors to train the regular army and the police in Afghanistan. It looks a bit like the “three D’s” to which Holland has committed itself: “defense, diplomacy and development.”

The new course comes as no surprise. Obama promised during the election campaign that he would conduct the political and military battle against terrorism where it should be conducted first: not in Iraq, but in “AfPak,” as the region is called in diplomatic terms.

But that does not mean that success is guaranteed. The disintegration process may have progressed too far already. There are clues that the Pakistani secret service, ISI, which functioned as liaison between the anticommunist mujahidin and their sponsors in America during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1979-1989), still actively supports Taliban groups.

This is only one indication that the U.S. not only needs to rely on their Western allies in the ISAF, like Holland, for the success of their new policy, but also on less-friendly partners. The crucial role of Iran, which will be present in The Hague tomorrow and wants its value recognized, is the most striking example. But without the cooperation of neighbor India, one of the largest donors to Afghanistan and arch-enemy of nuclear power Pakistan, success will be difficult to attain. That goes for China and Russia as well. From a historical perspective, rest in the region is closely knit with the geopolitical appetite of the neighboring countries. Last week, two experts pointedly wrote in The New York Times that Afghanistan would not be easy to occupy because of how difficult it is to stabilize.

Without full cooperation from the neighbors, the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan cannot be as comprehensive as Obama wants us to believe, and will therefore prove to be less successful.