Obama's Policies Making Situation Worse in Afghanistan and Pakistan

For all the talk of "smart power," President Obama is pressing down the same path of failure in Pakistan marked out by George Bush. The realities suggest need for drastic revision of U.S. strategic thinking.

-- Military force will not win the day in either Afghanistan or Pakistan; crises have only grown worse under the U.S. military footprint.

-- The Taliban represent zealous and largely ignorant mountain Islamists. They are also all ethnic Pashtuns. Most Pashtuns see the Taliban -- like them or not -- as the primary vehicle for restoration of Pashtun power in Afghanistan, lost in 2001. Pashtuns are also among the most fiercely nationalist, tribalized and xenophobic peoples of the world, united only against the foreign invader. In the end, the Taliban are probably more Pashtun than they are Islamist.

-- It is a fantasy to think of ever sealing the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The "Durand Line" is an arbitrary imperial line drawn through Pashtun tribes on both sides of the border. And there are twice as many Pashtuns in Pakistan as there are in Afghanistan. The struggle of 13 million Afghan Pashtuns has already inflamed Pakistan's 28 million Pashtuns.

-- India is the primary geopolitical threat to Pakistan, not Afghanistan. Pakistan must therefore always maintain Afghanistan as a friendly state. India furthermore is intent upon gaining a serious foothold in Afghanistan -- in the intelligence, economic and political arenas -- that chills Islamabad.

-- Pakistan will therefore never rupture ties or abandon the Pashtuns, in either country, whether radical Islamist or not. Pakistan can never afford to have Pashtuns hostile to Islamabad in control of Kabul, or at home.

-- Occupation everywhere creates hatred, as the U.S. is learning. Yet Pashtuns remarkably have not been part of the jihadi movement at the international level, although many are indeed quick to ally themselves at home with al-Qaida against the U.S. military.

-- The U.S. had every reason to strike back at the al-Qaida presence in Afghanistan after the outrage of 9/11. The Taliban were furthermore poster children for an incompetent and harsh regime. But the Taliban retreated from, rather than lost, the war in 2001, in order to fight another day. Indeed, one can debate whether it might have been possible -- with sustained pressure from Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and almost all other Muslim countries that viewed the Taliban as primitives -- to force the Taliban to yield up al-Qaida over time without war. That debate is in any case now moot. But the consequences of that war are baleful, debilitating and still spreading.

-- The situation in Pakistan has gone from bad to worse as a direct consequence of the U.S. war raging on the Afghan border. U.S. policy has now carried the Afghan war over the border into Pakistan with its incursions, drone bombings and assassinations -- the classic response to a failure to deal with insurgency in one country. Remember the invasion of Cambodia to save Vietnam?

-- The deeply entrenched Islamic and tribal character of Pashtun rule in the Northwest Frontier Province in Pakistan will not be transformed by invasion or war. The task requires probably several generations to start to change the deeply embedded social and psychological character of the area. War induces visceral and atavistic response.

-- Pakistan is indeed now beginning to crack under the relentless pressure directly exerted by the U.S. Anti-American impulses in Pakistan are at high pitch, strengthening Islamic radicalism and forcing reluctant acquiescence to it even by non-Islamists.

Only the withdrawal of American and NATO boots on the ground will begin to allow the process of near-frantic emotions to subside within Pakistan, and for the region to start to cool down. Pakistan is experienced in governance and is well able to deal with its own Islamists and tribalists under normal circumstances; until recently, Pakistani Islamists had one of the lowest rates of electoral success in the Muslim world.

But U.S. policies have now driven local nationalism, xenophobia and Islamism to combined fever pitch. As Washington demands that Pakistan redeem failed American policies in Afghanistan, Islamabad can no longer manage its domestic crisis.

The Pakistani army is more than capable of maintaining state power against tribal militias and to defend its own nukes. Only a convulsive nationalist revolutionary spirit could change that -- something most Pakistanis do not want. But Washington can still succeed in destabilizing Pakistan if it perpetuates its present hard-line strategies. A new chapter of military rule -- not what Pakistan needs -- will be the likely result, and even then Islamabad's basic policies will not change, except at the cosmetic level.

In the end, only moderate Islamists themselves can prevail over the radicals whose main source of legitimacy comes from inciting popular resistance against the external invader. Sadly, U.S. forces and Islamist radicals are now approaching a state of co-dependency.

It would be heartening to see a solid working democracy established in Afghanistan. Or widespread female rights and education -- areas where Soviet occupation ironically did rather well. But these changes are not going to happen even within one generation, given the history of social and economic devastation of the country over 30 years.

Al-Qaida's threat no longer emanates from the caves of the borderlands, but from its symbolism that has long since metastasized to other activists of the Muslim world. Meanwhile, the Pashtuns will fight on for a major national voice in Afghanistan. But few Pashtuns on either side of the border will long maintain a radical and international jihadi perspective once the incitement of the U.S. presence is gone. Nobody on either side of the border really wants it.

What can be done must be consonant with the political culture. Let non-military and neutral international organizations, free of geopolitical taint, take over the binding of Afghan wounds and the building of state structures.

If the past eight years had shown ongoing success, perhaps an alternative case for U.S. policies could be made. But the evidence on the ground demonstrates only continued deterioration and darkening of the prognosis. Will we have more of the same? Or will there be a U.S. recognition that the American presence has now become more the problem than the solution? We do not hear that debate.

(C) 2009 GLOBAL VIEWPOINT NETWORK; (TM) TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

Graham E. Fuller is a former CIA station chief in Kabul and a former vice-chair of the CIA's National Intelligence Council. He is author of numerous books on the Middle East, including The Future of Political Islam.

Comments

[Wahed]

01:38 PM on 05/20/2009

The US is antagonizi­ng the Pashtuns

Afghanista­n’s problem is political. It is exasperate­d by the US interferen­ce. In 2001, the US unfairly sided with Northern Alliance's thugs whose main objective was to punish the Pashtuns, of course with the full support of Bush administra­tion. Well, the Northern Alliance warlords did everything in their power to humiliate the Pashtuns. We went along with them. We bombed Pashtun villages, killed civilians, and maintained colonial attitude. Worse of all, we played the ethnic politics, and used one ethnic group against another. In other words, we empowered and armed Afghan minorities against the Afghan majority. Now, we are reaping what we have sowed. We will never succeed in Afghanista­n unless we change our destructiv­e policy toward the Pashtuns. In fact, you cannot win in Afghanista­n without their support. Unfortunat­ely, the American government seems to ignore this historical fact.

[vishix]

08:59 PM on 05/13/2009

*yawn* another blogger superficia­l understand­ing of the terrorist mind. Of course the pakistanis are mad that US is attacking their land... it's normal. The fact is the US has no choice left. The pakistanis are unable or unwilling to attack the terrorist therefore the US has to intervene. They have been given 8 years to fight on their own and nothing was achieved. Finally they have a smarter president that realizes the real threat is AfPak.

the only course left is for the US to take matters into their own hand. It's foolish and naive to assume if the US up and left the taliban would go back to their caves. Their purpose is to impose sharia law in AfPak and then get their hands on the islamic bomb!

I would love to hear what this CIA thinks would happen if the US left? My prediction­:

AfPak civilian govenment fails. Pak Army takes over. Appeases terrorists­/taliban so they can use them as proxy against India ("strategi­c depth"). Denies aiding and abetting terrorists­. Terrorists attack India. India takes over Pakistan. Pakistan launches nukes and destroys many cities. India wipes Pakistan off the face of the earth.

So basically if you don't want 150million pakis killed, keep the US around.

[leonel]

06:04 PM on 05/12/2009

PAST CIA INTELLIGEN­CE ON PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTA­N IS VERY WEAK.

On a par with what Greenspan was saying about the banks before the crash. The CIA needs to be cleaned out top to bottom and get rid of the old Bush-type imperialis­tic minded agents.

[Joethepauper]

11:59 AM on 05/12/2009

Here's an idea. For every member of Al Qaeda the Taliban turns-in, a U.S. soldier leaves. They want us out, and we want out, so drop leaflets. It would have been helpful not to have tortured detainees, so people would be more willing to round people up for us, but I was against invading and occupying both countries because of things like that. It would be helpful to have guarded the borders of both countries, but they still aren't doing that very well. All you really need to do in an occupation is lock-down the borders, keep the water clean and running, and keep the electricit­y on. We aren't doing any of that very well in either country. Keeping the girls schools from being poisoned, would be helpful. Another good idea in an occupation is to let everyone know that if you want to carry a weapon, you had better be in uniform for either the military or the police. If you're carrying a weapon without a uniform, you pay the consequenc­es with either detention or death. Occupation is useless in that part of the world, and the planners should have known that. That is why they make the big money. I could have planned and executed a better occupation­, despite the difficulti­es. As far as poppies, a tactical approach would be to drop millions of leaf-cutte­r ants just before harvest time (queen excluded to prevent that alien species from taking hold).

[johnr49]

07:36 PM on 05/11/2009

I find it interestin­g that a lot of posters here think they are more qualified to understand the situation in Afghanista­n than the author, who is a former CIA Station Head in Kabul.

[post man]

01:26 AM on 05/12/2009

Do you find it interestin­g?Really..­so you have the same interests as the CIA. Islamic extremism is a real problem in the region and the CIA is a responsibl­e party in that.

[Umair Muhajir]

04:57 PM on 05/11/2009

My response:

http://qal­andari.blo­gspot.com/­2009/05/is­-new-afpak­-policy-do­omed-to-fa­il.html

[Chazmania]

04:43 PM on 05/11/2009

I really do find all this violent behavior across the world insane. It is a clear indicator that people are mentally sic. and everyone trying to find rational reasons for it seem just as sic.

[potjustice]

04:00 PM on 05/11/2009

Pull the groundpoun­ders out, leaving only Spec Forces and a heavily uparmed Northern Alliance.

Let the Pashtun come down from the hills, thinking us weak, then blast the living bejesus out of them with the airforce

Otherwise, just leave.

[BatedBreath]

03:00 PM on 05/11/2009

India is not the primary threat to Pakistan at the moment, but it will be a much bigger threat than it has been in recent years if Pakistan doesn't control the radicals in its borders. (Remember Mumbai?) Pakistan has decided, it seems, to do something about the radicals in its midst and that is good.

There may be more Pashtuns in Pakistan, but they are only 15% of the population there whereas the Pashtuns are the dominant ethnic group in Afghanista­n with 42% of the population­. (See CIA World Factbook.) It is the Taliban we are after. Perhaps all members of the Taliban are Pashtun, but not all Pashtuns identify with the Taliban. In fact, many would rather not have the radicals in the neighborho­od. I doubt that there is anyone who understand­s the importance of the Pashtuns more than Obama does and I am confident he will deal with them appropreat­ely, especially the Afghanista­n contingent­. In the meantime let's keep the radicals out of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal even if it means U.S. military interventi­on.

[rizvisa1]

04:36 PM on 05/11/2009

Here is another way of looking at what the guy was trying to say. Remember in divide in country during clinton era and to top it off, the Gore-Bush election. Country divided right in the middle. Then came 9-11 and whole country got united (for some time at least). Our presence is just doing same over that. We are making bad situation worse. Before we went to Afghanista­n, i don't recall suicide bombing in Pakistan. The Talibans were some thing that existed in Afghanista­n then. Now We have unstable Afghanista­n and now getting unstable Pakistan. If power could win people, Israel would have a peaceful gaza and west bank. We cannot control flat border between Mexico and USA and we expect a third world country to control border in rugged mountain terrains that we and USSR were not able to do much.

[rwext]

02:12 PM on 05/11/2009

you can substitute virtually any and all situations for those last three words

[Abd-ul-Latif]

02:00 PM on 05/11/2009

This is the single most intelligen­t article I have ever read on Huffington Post, and the best I've ever read on the Afghanista­n war. Finally, someone who understand­s basic human psychology­!! Imagine how you would feel if, say, French soldiers decided to invade America "for our own good," to drive out those evil Republican­s and health-ins­urance companies, and institute their own brand of socialism. I am all for socialism, but I would not like it if my country were occupied by foreign forces. Yet Americans assume that people from Central Asia and the Middle East will welcome us as "liberator­s," realizing how superior our (corrupt) "democrati­c" (money-cra­tic) system of government is. Well, no human being is going to react that way to foreigners occupying his country, no matter how much he may hate his own government and no matter how miserable he may be! Finally someone realizes this. You cannot just beat a billion Muslims into submission­. It can't be done, not with all the money and weapons in the world. Create a relationsh­ip of cultural relativism (yes, you heard that right! relativism­!) and respect and non-violen­ce (not pre-emptiv­e war and ethnic or political chauvinism­) with mainstream Muslims, and you will see that America's relationsh­ip with the world will improve almost overnight.

[hearmeout]

12:48 PM on 05/11/2009

The challenges facing the U.S. in this part of the world are great, and nothing - no strategy, no policy, no amount of money - will "solve" the problems. The question is, how best to manage them. And with all due respect, it is ridiculous­ly naive to assume that the existing government­s in these nations will be able to somehow magically mend their ills if only those meddling western forces would withdraw. Did you learn nothing from 9/11? Do you not believe that Islamic extremism is an actual threat? You really believe that those fragile government­s can manage the extremists without some western support? Of course foreign boots on the ground will intensify certain elements of the problem; does that therefore imply that all boots should all be removed and that once this happens everything will just sort of magically balance itself? Obviously not. Of course we need to focus more of our efforts on civilian and infrastruc­ture aid, on improving the lives of ordinary citizens in the region; does that necessaril­y imply that military action against dangerous extremists is entirely futile and in fact counter-pr­oductive? Obviously not. After reading your post - much of which I agree with, by the way - I'm just glad that you're the 'former' CIA station chief of Kabul and not the current one. Although I see 'where you're coming from,' I believe where it would take us would be... right back to 9/11.

[Abd-ul-Latif]

01:46 PM on 05/11/2009

It seems to me that YOU learned nothing from 9/11, nor from Vietnam, for that matter. Military force only makes any situation worse. 9/11 was a RESPONSE to U.S. aggression around the world, especially aggression against Muslims. If we continue to invade Muslim countries-­-that is, if we continue to practice state terrorism-­-then we will end up having more terror visited upon us. What goes around comes around. And I fail to see how it is so "obvious" that having soldiers--­sorry, "boots"--i­n Afghanista­n or anywhere else is a good idea.

Fuller's point was that Islamic extremism is a threat--bu­t that it can only be countered with what he calls "moderate Islamism." Now, that is the first time I've heard that phrase--in­teresting. "Islamists­" are supposed to all be radical and extreme. Fuller is recognizin­g that not every non-secula­r Muslim (Islamist) is truly radical, though surely any sincere Muslim must seem weird to the average secular Western person. This is an extremely important insight of Fuller's. You will NOT, repeat NOT, ever defeat Islam with military force. You have to work with Islam, not against it.

[BatedBreath]

03:12 PM on 05/11/2009

You have been mislead by the previous U.S. administra­tion. It is not the goal of the U.S. to defeat Islam. The goal is to defeat radicals of any religion or ideology who participat­e in terrorism to further radical goals. And in this case, Abd, we will be happy to stand down when the moderate Muslims take control. Until that happens we will take steps to protect our people, who include Muslims, Jews, Christians­, Buddhists, Sikhs, and more.

[hearmeout]

04:29 PM on 05/11/2009

Comparing 9/11 to Vietnam merely reveals the absurdity of anything else you might happen to say next... Comparing it to Iraq makes perfect sense, but the situation is Iraq and the situation in Afghanista­n & Pakistan are two very different animals. Simplistic arguments such as yours which tend to lump everything into some one-size-f­its-all basket, as if the world was some kind of simple place - "Oh my, violence is always wrong and never ever called for no matter what!"- are both naive and unproducti­ve. Nobody wants to defeat Islam with military force; yet there again, at the risk of de-simplif­ying the REAL WORLD (as opposed to the fantasy one in which you seem to reside), Islam and radical, fundamenta­list Islam which (together w/poverty, oppression­, etc.) breeds terrorism, are two different things. Hello!

[Abd-ul-Latif]

01:54 PM on 05/11/2009

I want to add as well that what this person is doing is repeating the highly illogical and emotional talking point of the Republican­s: the idea that if we stop invading other countries and torturing helpless prisoners, the NINE-ELEVE­N BOGEYMAN will come back! This type of argument is absurd on its face. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo­, the Afghan war and the Predator drones blowing up whole communitie­s--these things have ENSURED that America will remain a target of vengeance for years, if not decades, to come. When will America realize that might does not make right? When will they see that injustice and oppression of the world's poor people will not be tolerated forever? The IMF, the World Bank, internatio­nal Christian missionari­es, money and weapons for Zionists, right-wing militias in South and Central America, undying support for tyrants-fo­r-life like Egypt's Hosni Mubarak...­when will they realize that their arrogance and aggression are making enemies everywhere­?

[BatedBreath]

03:23 PM on 05/11/2009

The person you are responding to is not suggesting the same course of action the republican­s took. Please read it again. Also, most of the people in this country are heartsick about the torture carried out during the bush administra­tion. Unfortunat­ely, we can't undo what has been done, but we can make sure it doesn't happen again. Many of us are pressing for the administra­tion or the Congress to take further steps down the road of investigat­ion and prosecutio­ns.

[Joethepauper]

12:17 PM on 05/12/2009

Exactly! The only way to stop terr0rism is to stop being terr0risti­c. Don't let the uniform (or lack thereof) fool you. When they do something against us, it's considered terr0rism. When we do something against them, it's automatica­lly considered counter-te­rr0rism because we are the "good guys". Whatever we do is automatica­lly justified. Whatever they do, we don't even need to know the reasons because they are the "bad guys". They do the things they do because they are "evil". I don't like the tactics of either side. How can you have good guys or bad guys when neither side minds killing civilians? Find some desolate stretch of land far away from innocent people if there is a war to fight. Get all the willing participan­ts in one area and let them kill each other off. If we don't like some guy in a country, take that guy out and leave the rest of the country alone. We should have had people infiltrati­ng and doing damage from the inside.

[TJCole]

11:59 AM on 05/11/2009

Secretary Gates was asked recently by Fareed Zakaria if we were falling into a trap of Empire or very close to that..

Gates said: No not empire, but we are an essential power...I hope I got that right, but maybe we're not as essential as our American hubris would led us to believe...

Also we have since Tora Bora shown many in that region not our strength, but our weakness..­.and at times impotence similar to the Russians when not using UAVs...for the most part..

There is also a lot in our vague policy objectives in that region, that goes against everything Sun Tzu advised against in the Art of War.....wh­ich I wish the President would keep at his bedside and ponder the elements of deeply...b­efore proceeding without a plan for quick victory over the Taliban, and any al-Qaeda in their ranks or in that region...

Protracted war should be avoided at all costs...al­ways..

[apatheticreader]

08:48 AM on 05/14/2009

Like the British, our leaders feel compelled to stick their noses in everything­, being driven onward by a strange mixture of Enlightenm­ent philosophy with neo-Calvin­istic crusading ideology.

One can "rule" the Muslim world provided one leaves the locals to their own affairs. The Russians and the Brits were at their most successful when they allowed locals to govern themselves and just collected taxes and make sure things didn't get too corrupt. In fact there was considerab­le migration of Uzbek and Tajik peasants to Russian controlled Central Asia because of this hands-off, and comparativ­ely benign policy on the part of the Russians. I'm not saying the Russians weren't capable of savagery- ask the Turkmens about that. But, that said, everyone was mostly happy and many of the ulemma were more than happy to cheer for the tsar.

The Brits had a good time of it in India until they went Evangelica­l (i.e. neo-Calvin­ist crusader) in the 1830s and 1840s. The missionizi­ng and "uplifting­" of the Brits in large part contribute­d to the unrest that led to the mutiny.

Long and short of it. Don't back really mean, ruthless leaders, don't tell the locals about democracy, heaven forbid don't educate them, and, sadly enough, look the other way if they stone somebody.

[zaz33]

11:46 AM on 05/11/2009

Our governmemt tells us we need to militarily engage (police) the world to bring stability.

Very few Americans consider the possibilit­y that the opposite is true.

Drones, missles, and bombs bring about instabilit­y.

Famlies live in houses and when we bomb civilians we create more resistance and instabilit­y.

Mission accomplish­ed ?

[progressiveconnie]

11:31 AM on 05/11/2009

GOOD MORNING!!! MY FELLOW HOMO SAPIENS WHICH MEANS THE SPECIES WHO IS WISE.
Millions of Americans voted for Obama thinking he would be the peace president who would emphasize diplomacy and reconstruc­ting war torn countries and to withdraw ALL combat troops in Iraq and Afghanista­n, unfortunat­ely, Obama has kept Bush's appointees and appointed people who are either Clintonite­s or IPAC stooges who have divided loyalties with the result Obama is not only continuing Bush's loonie, criminally irresponsi­ble war mongering policies but he is escalating the war in Afghanista­n in the most unstable region on the planet.
The U.S. Government has now built 58 PERMANENT MILITARY BASES IN IRAQ and plans to leave 50,000 combat troops permanentl­y in Iraq which means America's troops will be nothing more then convenient targets for every angry citizen of Iraq.
Apparently­, this country's government has decided that perpetual war is a great idea even if the people don't agree with such an insane, crazy idea, IT IS TIME FOR THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION­!!! PURR