The first alternative: We can go all the way in. That means not only providing the additional combat and support troops requested by General McChrystal but also successfully gaining sufficient leverage on the Pakistani government, military, and Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence to assure a full and effective prosecution of the war against Taliban and other Islamist jihadist groups in the country.
The second alternative: Go away. We can declare victory over al-Qaeda. Our efforts to date can justify the assertion that al-Qaeda has been nullified as a terrorist threat with a minimal degree of accuracy and credibility. At the same time we can aver that Taliban does not constitute a threat to the US. The capos of Taliban certainly want us to believe just how innocent they are.
Of course to accept the second alternative--even if it is modified so as to allow continued targeted assassinations of al-Qaeda and Taliban senior operatives--it is necessary to ignore both recent history and current political-social-cultural dynamics within the two critical countries. The capacity of Deep Thinkers to willfully put history and even present day realities off to the side is legendary.
Before deciding that were Taliban to take power one more time in Afghanistan, it is essential that one question be answered. The question is this: Why did we invade Afghanistan eight years ago?
That's right, bucko.
The US dominated coalition put boots and bombs on the ground in Afghanistan for precisely one reason. The Taliban government resisted diplomatic entreaties to hand over Osama bin Ladin and others of al-Qaeda to the US for trial. The Taliban jefe grande informed us that the laws of Islamic hospitality precluded handing the thugs over.
As a result of Taliban's subscription to the requirements of Islam rather than the norms of international usage and conventions, the US saw no alternative to invasion. The propriety of the American action was questioned by very few.
Other reasons adduced to justify the invasion were unnecessary, even counterproductive. The simple fact of the Taliban government being unwilling to agree to the extradition of the terrorists was sufficient.
Had the US and its allies limited their effort to a punitive expedition, the war would have been ended quickly and relatively decisively. The mission was not limited. Nor did the US lean on its "ally," Pakistan, so as to prevent that country's intelligence and clandestine services from facilitating the removal of al-Qaeda and Taliban personnel from Afghanistan.
Those two initial errors provided the foundation for the next several years of war in Afghanistan and the growth of Taliban in Pakistan's FATA. This result was predictable--and predicted.
Also predicted was the continued close association between Pakistan's ISI and the Islamist jihadists of both Taliban and al-Qaeda. In a very real way the development of the FATA as the single greatest locus of Islamist jihadist terror was the foreseeable but unintended consequence of the way in which the US conceived and executed its invasion of Afghanistan.
When we went in, we did not go all the way in. We did not focus on an achievable goal--the eradication of both al-Qaeda and Taliban. We did not use sufficient force to accomplish that task.
As a result the US now faces the interlocking challenges of defeating Taliban in Afghanistan and leveraging the Pakistanis into doing the same on their side of the border. Either is difficult on its own. Taken together as they must be, the job becomes impossible or the next thing to it.
The military defeat of Taliban in Afghanistan will require a significantly greater commitment of US troops than the sixty-eight thousand currently programmed. Even if General McChrystal were to receive the maximum force augmentation of forty thousand, taking the war to Taliban, protecting the uncommitted majority of the Afghan civilian population, and wresting the initiative from Taliban is a considerable undertaking.
Without the maximum force augmentation (and some additional forces from NATO coalition members), the job cannot be done or, at the least, done rapidly enough to forestall total collapse of American political will. And, anything other than a clear and convincing defeat of Taliban will constitute a victory for Islamist jihadism.
Militating against the mounting of a successful counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan is the loss of faith in the very notion of counterinsurgency within the upper strata of the administration. People who were all for counterinsurgency six months ago have abandoned all hope in that direction.
There are several reasons for this turn around. At the top of the list is the reelection of Karzai. The massive fraud involved turned more than a few stomachs. In addition, there has been a growing revulsion at the endemic corruption within the government. A general sense that the Karzai regime is not worth a single American life has taken hold.
As belief in the possibility of waging successful counterinsurgency in Afghanistan has waned, the results of the UAV attacks on al-Qaeda and Taliban personalities in the FATA has fanned faith in remotely controlled killing. The drone delivered death from above has not only caused significant perturbation in the target groups, it has cheered armchair warfighters in the administration.
War which is cheap in American lives has been the touchstone of US doctrine and decision making ever since the hectatombs of the War Between the States. We have spared no expense, left no technology unused, if use and expense saved American lives. The UAV is an ideal American weapon and dependency upon it would and does constitute an ideal sort of war from our perspective.
As a corollary, we Americans have been quite happy to have someone else do the dying on our behalf. During World War II we bent every effort to assure that the Russians or the Chinese would do the fighting and dying to the maximal extent possible. Today we would be quite pleased if we could cozen the Pakistanis into doing the same.
The problem comes in that the government--and even more the military--of Pakistan sees no reason for waging war and taking casualties on behalf of the US. The Taliban of Pakistan may be a nuisance, an annoyance, and even a threat, but it is not seen as one of such magnitude that major operations with their attendant losses should be undertaken.
The Pakistani military made its opposition to carrying water on behalf of Uncle Sam quite plain with its demand the government reject American aid if the aid came with strings. The proposed greatly increased aid package does come with strings--a lot of them. The package is a blatant effort to induce the Pakistani Army to get on with the fighting and the dying.
The Army and, to an even greater extent, ISI, views Taliban as a controllable tool of state. Neither Army nor ISI sees any reason to put Taliban on the mat. Indeed, both conceive of Taliban as the means by which Pakistan will extend control over Afghanistan. That goal was the reason why ISI created Taliban in the first place twenty or so years ago.
For the US, Afghanistan and the FATA are the spawning spots for terrorism. For the Army and ISI in Pakistan these regions and the Islamist jihadists within them are strategic centers for the never ending war with India. Islamabad views Afghanistan as its strategic depth. That is why the Pakistani government--and many within the Pakistani elite--view Indian diplomatic and economic development efforts in Afghanistan with the utmost of suspicion.
The lens of the war with India also distorts the view of Islamist jihadism within both the Army and ISI. Representatives of both organizations have made it clear to Taliban that while jihadist attacks in Pakistan are unacceptable, jihadist strikes on India are perfectly OK.
To put an even sharper focus on the matter. A Taliban regime in Kabul is more than simply acceptable to Islamabad. It is desirable. It would be to Pakistan's national and strategic interest. While outsiders might argue that a Taliban government would be repressive, feudal, reactionary, and violative of human rights, that set of concerns does not trouble Pakistan in the slightest.
The implication for the Obama administration is self-evident. Pakistan will never be a full associate in any effort whether called "counter terrorism" or "counterinsurgency" which would have the real potential of reducing Taliban to a nullity. Taliban is simply seen as too useful, too important as a tool in the war with India to be either decisively defeated or nullified.
This means the US is on its own in Afghanistan. It means as well that the US actions in the FATA must be limited to the extent that they have the net effect of making Taliban more dependent upon its sponsors in Pakistan. Ironically, in so far as our attacks make Taliban weaker as an independent player, we make it more useful to the Pakistanis as a weapon used against India.
In our search for stability in Afghanistan we will make the dynamic between India and Pakistan less stable. That is a really delightful irony.
Both history and current dynamics lead to the same conclusion. The US must either go all the way in or go away.
If we go all the way in we have to do it fast. Fast, hard, and with inevitable casualties. If we go all the way in, the result at the best will be one of "not losing." It will not mean a stable, let alone a democratic, pluralistic, liberal government of the Western sort. Going all the way in will, at best, inflict a clear military defeat on the Islamist jihadists. It will do no more than that.
If we go away, the result will be a strengthening of the Islamist jihadists around the world. It will also mean that a larger rather than a smaller percentage of the world's 1.7 billion Muslims will support the Islamist jihadists. It will mean more years, more decades of fear, of attacks, of future wars.
Those are the only real world options confronting the Obama administration. To err on the side of accuracy it means the President himself. The choice is between bad and worse. It's not a fun choice.
But, whoever said being President was simply photo ops in the Rose Garden?
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