Last week the Obama administration sent clear signals that it was planning to fold its tents in Afghanistan earlier than previously advertised. That set off a flurry of speculation as to why and whether we were giving up on the mission. Most of the talk is about how a retreat could be accomplished with credibility intact. After all, Afghanistan is where the "war on terror" began more than ten years ago.
Once again, though, we are focusing on means and modalities without specifying the ends. That's been true for most of the past decade's engagement in the place. Having rooted out the al-Qaeda leadership and toppled the Taliban from their perch in Kabul, we made the fateful decision to stick around. Exactly why never has been clear. Was it to nation build and state build? To turn Afghanistan into a beacon of modern democracy in a backward region -- a match to Iraq in the Middle East? Was an integral part of that project a desire to secure the rights of Afghan women? Was the purpose to extend the reach of American military bases deep into Central Asia so as better to deal with whomever or whatever might become hostile to the United States and its clients?
The only answer we received was that it was critical to American domestic security that we preclude even the remote possibility that another salafist regime might take power in Afghanistan which could once again accommodate Islamist terrorists bent on striking the United States. There was a certain logic to this position -- if the measure of security was zero threat. It was on those grounds, even though never fully or explicitly articulated, that we set the goal of extirpating the Taliban as a political force -- across the Durand Line as well as in Afghanistan proper. They posed an indirect threat, not a direct one. After all, no Taliban has killed a single Westerner outside of Afghanistan or Pakistan. But the specter of another 9/11 still stigmatized them as the enemy that had to be liquidated. This was the justification for Obama's two-phase escalation since January 2009. This was the justification for experimenting with David Petraeus' fashionable new-old COIN strategies. This was the justification for extending the war into Pakistan, for turning the vise on the Pakistani leadership, for alienating them so completely as to make them hostile to the Washington and all its works. This was the justification for sowing the seeds of civil war in this nuclear armed country. This was the justification for subordinating our nuclear concerns to the will-o'-wisp adventure in the Hindu Kush and other Afghan badlands searching for the Holy Grail of absolute security.
Now we are told by Joe Biden that the Taliban were never the enemy. I guess that we have been rampaging around the place for 9 years, killing and being killed, wasting several hundred billion dollars, to crush a different enemy. Who? Hardcore Soviet revanchists? The opium cartel growers association? This deceitful nonsense is apiece with the earlier witless formulation that "we'll know success when we see it." That our leaders believe, rightly, that they can get away with such inane remarks on an issue of such saliency is the most telling commentary on the comatose state of public discourse nowadays. The question now is: will we know failure when we see? The answer is 'no' since success or failure depends on having a clear sense of what you're trying to do. We don't have one.
The bitter truth is that the Obama administration foreign policy team is witless about too many things. There is a strong case to made that it is not competent to be the custodian of the nation's welfare in the larger world; nor is it honest about its shortcomings. In both senses, they are irresponsible. The White House in particular assays everything in terms of two simple criteria: is it spinnable?; will it help Barack Obama get reelected? Even on that score, they can't get their story straight. One day, Mr. Panetta affirms that the combat mission will end in 2013 -- earlier than previously announced. The next day General Petraeus corrects him in assuring us that nothing has changed. That's true if the reference of what hasn't changed had been to the fecklessness of the Obama cohort -- and its inability to think or act coherently.
The alternatives offer no greater comfort. They vow to bomb Iran within days of being seated in the Oval Office. Mr. Obama too may take us into a war with Iran -- out of immaturity and fatuousness.
Robert Naiman: Can Joe Lieberman Block Diplomacy With Iran That Would Prevent War?
What's to be avoided is more important than what we can salvage (pretty much nothing). There will be civil strife once we leave whenever that is. The Taliban insurgency is part sectarian war between Pushtons and the alliance of Tajiks, Uzbeks and (sometimes) Hezeras. This has nothing to do with the shreds of al-Qaeda.
On the to be avoided list, number one is that the growing strength of Pakistan's anti-government Islamist radicals further destablizes the country. raising the spectre of civil war. We have subordinated our concern over the fate of Pakistani nuclear weapons to the hunt for the will o' wisp of absolute security through killing any one and any Muslim group hostile to the U.S. Our crude meddling is a prime cause of the problem. That's what the medical world calls an iatrogenic illness,
We should concentrate on getting out fairly quickly, opening a real dialogue with the Taliban, along with Karzai and the crucial Pakistanis.Will the White House see the light? The record and current politics say 'no.' The reelected Obamas' obsession with legacy could make that a 'maybe' afterwards.
"...the man is all hat and no cattle."
RG. Glaser, Ph.D.
Forget the war on terror for a moment if you will. This IS the place of the world’s greatest ill IMHO. That pretty and DEADLY flower the poppy. Something like 98% of this globe’s poppy supply grown in so few little acres.
How foolish our MIC has been for the last decade. This could have been a decade of focused seasonally (flower growth season) of wiping a silly little PLANT out, systematically, growth after growth until it was well understood…. grow some food, this plant’s roots are cooked!
And no I do not care whose brother you are. Combine forces, war on terror with the one on drugs.
Now that MIC I WOULD be very impressed with!
BO wants to get out.
Why are we there? What is the goal. YOU please state what the goal should be, if you think there is a goal. Go ahead.
Vote for Obama, he sucks less. And sadly I'll hold my nose and do exactly that.
But what do you expect when you appoint a serial liar and incompetent as Secretary of State just because you defeated her in the Democrat primaries?
We have helped bring a sort of democracy to them. We have helped women there to join at least the early twentieth century- but no matter when we withdraw THEY have to stabilize the country and the citizens. We have to accept that the new government for Afghanistan probably won't be our democracy. We can let it be known that we will object to any of the old Taliban coming back to power- promising to send another seal six team attack on that Taliban.
Right now we are facing instability in both Syria and Iran. I hope that we don't get involved in either countries internal affairs and that Iran can be coaxed or coerced into giving up their atomic weapons attempts without risking any of our troops! I hope we all can get behind the leaders who have seen us through so much that needs to be stopped or ended. Don't change horses in mid stream.
There's no prospect of changing any hearts or minds, so why not leave? The outcome won't change.
Available at: http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Red-Joseph-Foster/dp/1613468121/
My blog Stand Up For America! – Seeing Red; http://boblupoli.blogspot.com/