One of the clichés of Obama's presidential election campaign is that the invasion of Iraq was the wrong war but that the war in Afghanistan is the right one. After all, Afghanistan served as a haven for terrorists. Indeed, Obama and Biden call for a surge of troops in Afghanistan, as the Taliban is making a comeback. However, the attempt to impose a regime change on Afghanistan is failing and very likely to continue to fail, all the while causing more and more Afghani, American, and other casualties.
The main reason is that a conventional army is no match for guerrilla forces, especially when they can rely on a safe haven right across the border. The Taliban dress like civilians, are supplied by civilians, and are housed in civilian homes. When the US attacks them -- using the means of modern warfare -- it inevitably ends up killing civilians, including women and children. The notion that if the US used more ground forces and less planes and artillery there would be fewer casualties is a valid one--as far as the Afghani are concerned. But many more Americans, Britons and French are going to be lost this way. Using airpower undermines the support of the war by the Afghanis; using ground troops undermines the support of the war by America's allies, and soon--by Americans.
Moreover, given that the Pakistani government cannot control the tribal areas that border Afghanistan and provide a haven for the Taliban, the US is increasingly embroiled in a third war in Pakistan. This engagement causes still more civilian causalities. It further antagonizes the Pakistani people, the citizens of a nation -- one must never forget -- that has nuclear bombs which can be acquired by terrorists, a combination that is biggest one security nightmare.
What must be done? The number one lesson from Iraq is that what worked was not the surge but (a) working with local tribes and their militias, especially the Sunnis and the Kurds, but also various Shia groups. This involved dealing directly with the tribal chiefs or sheiks, and not some elected official in Bagdad who was handpicked by Americans. (b) The relative success also entailed allowing the Iraqi forces to carry more of the burden, whether they were fully prepared or not, and granting them various kinds of American help -- in communications, transportation, intelligence, and even fire power - when asked for.
In Afghanistan, the US has been trying to impose a national government and ignore or remove tribal chiefs, who command strong and sizable local militias. The time has come to realize that Afghanistan, even more than Iraq, is a tribal society composed of different ethnic groups, each dominating one part of the country. These groups and their troops were the forces that liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban in the first place, not the American ones. (Remember the Northern Alliance? It was an alliance of five different ethnic and religious groups, mostly Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara). These same tribes are best now called upon to take responsibility for various parts of the country--with American support when asked for.
The result will not be the picture perfect prosperous democracy that Neocons have been dreaming about. It is not in the cards anyhow. Indeed, as it is, the Afghani government is becoming ever more corrupt, increasingly controlled by opium exporting mafias, a new nacro-terrorism state. However a coalition of the major tribes--each represented by their chiefs, chosen the way these tribes have chosen the leaders for centuries--would go a long way toward stabilizing the country. Casualties would decline, especially among civilians, as it is much easier for the locals to tell who is who. And these tribes will understand that if their country again provides a haven for terrorists, they will face more rounds of bombing and missile attacks. The rest they will have to duke out with each other, as they have been doing since the beginning of history.
All this may seem like a minimalist agenda, but if one recalls the alternatives--especially in terms of the number of killed children and women, as well as some of our own youngsters--one realizes that this is about as good as it is going to get for now.
Amitai Etzioni is a professor of international relations at The George Washington University. For more discussion, see Security First (Yale 2007). To contact him, write comnet@gwu.edu. www.securityfirst.com
Is everyone supposed to now perpetually live either behind barred windows or else like blissful lambs before a slaughter?