Mr Obama's War: Playing for Time in Afghanistan

Related Post: Transcript of President Obama’s Interview with New York Times

President Obama gave a 35-minute exclusive interview to The New York Times on Friday. On the economy, it's an essential read. On foreign policy, the Times made a complete hash of its exclusive.

Despite Obama's attention to the economic crisis, the Times headlined, "Obama Ponders Outreach to Elements of the Taliban", declaring:

President Obama declared in an interview that the United States was not winning the war in Afghanistan and opened the door to a reconciliation process in which the American military would reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban, much as it did with Sunni militias in Iraq.

That is quite a scoop. Although Secretary of Defense Robert Gates raised the possibilities of such talks, it has not arisen as part of the possible Obama strategy, especially amidst the attention to the sharp increase in US troops in Afghanistan.

Only problem? It's not close to what Obama said. Here's the exchange:

Q. Do you see a time when you might be willing to reach out to more moderate elements of the Taliban, to try to peel them away, towards reconciliation?

A. I don’t want to pre-judge the review that’s currently taking place. If you talk to General Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us because they had been completely alienated by the tactics of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and the Pakistani region. But the situation in Afghanistan is, if anything, more complex. You have a less governed region, a history of fierce independence among tribes. Those tribes are multiple and sometimes operate at cross purposes, so figuring all that out is going to be a much more of a challenge.

So it was the Times, not Obama, that broached the possibility of engagement with the Taliban. And the President stonewalled: yes, there had been talks with former foes in Iraq but this approach could not be simply applied to Afghanistan.

Obama's clear signal, which the Times reporters missed, was that his investment was in the review being headed by US envoy Richard Holbrooke and Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution. As we've noted, that review followed Obama's refusal to accept fully the approach --- based on three earlier reviews --- proposed by the US military.

The President may have seized the political initiative in Washington, but in Kabul the immediate issue is President Hamid Karzai's bid to hold onto power. The Obama Administration has made a public commitment to a review which includes Afghan and Pakistani participation. And possibly most importantly, the first priority for Obama and his advisors right now is Pakistan. Obama told the Times reporters:

At the heart of a new Afghanistan policy is going to be a smarter Pakistan policy. As long as you’ve got safe havens in these border regions that the Pakistani government can’t control or reach, in effective ways, we’re going to continue to see vulnerability on the afghan side of the border. And so it’s very important for us to reach out to the Pakistani government, and work with them more effectively.

The explanation for the misleading headline in the Times is an easy one. Helene Cooper, one of the two reporters writing up the interview, has a "Week in Review" piece in today's paper, "Dreaming of Splitting the Taliban". The article is based on the opinions of think-tank experts and a "European diplomat", but it has no input from an Administration official. No problem: Cooper just stuck the theme of his Week in Review analysis on top of the Obama interview, twisting the President into the inside source for the piece.

Even if the concept of talking to the moderate Taliban is one that should be supported, that's lazy journalism. So toss aside the Times fluff, keep your eyes for the moment on Pakistan, and wait --- possibly until the NATO summit at the start of April --- for a real story on an Obama strategy in Afghanistan.

Comments

[mjB]

all of Obama's decisions will be made by others while he basks in the spotlight in his never-ending election campaign for fame.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1543285/the_ploy_of_inaction.html?singlepage=true&cat=75

mB

[Josh Mull]

Remember that long and rambling comment I made about how the American people didn't really care what happens with the Taliban or al-Qa'eda or anything like that, they only care about whether we win? Somebody else is getting cynical too...

Negotiate with the Taliban? Yawn.
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/08/negotiate_with_the_taliban_yawn

"For one thing, there's little evidencce the U.S. public has ever paid much attention to Afghanistan and I don't think that even now, with news organizations ramping up their coverage of the war there, that the vast majority of ordinary folks will care how CENTCOM chief Gen. David Petraeus et al go about their business -- if they even know what is going on at all.

Americans just want the U.S. war effort there to succeed. Period. The "how" is a very Washington debate, I'd wager."

[Scott Lucas]

Small problem: To "win" may mean that the US has to negotiate with insurgents, just as in Iraq the US military had to cut deals with Sunni factions to limit the violent opposition. So that "how" is pretty important.

[Stan Krasnoff]

The only time the Taliban will come to the negotiating table is when they are getting whipped. So, a change of strategy is necessary from propping up an Afghani democracy that uses the US as a milch cow back to why the US and its allies got there in the first place. The war started with Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 when the Northern Alliance, heavily supported by US firepower, ousted the Taliban and cornered al Qaeda in the mountains of Tora Bora. Instead of sending in a US Ranger or Marine Brigade to collar the remnants—which would have been in line with the post 9/11 mission—the US sat on its hands allowing the Northern Alliance to broker a dubious cease-fire. Seven years later Karzai has allowed Afghanistan to be carved up by warlords. He has also failed to quell the resurgence of Taliban, Hisb-i-Islami, and Haqqanis fighters who rampage throughout Afghanistan. Presidential elections are scheduled for Afghanistan in August 2009. Karzai would have a hard time getting 20% of the votes. The people blame the US and NATO for the increase in the power of the warlords. The United National Front (Northern Alliance) in parliament, demand a change in the constitution to bring in a parliamentary system of government with political parties and elections by proportional representation. The only war that the US and its allies need to wage is against al Qaeda for the murder of 3,000 innocent civilians. If the Taliban wishes to protect Bin Laden and al Qaeda, then be that on the Taliban’s head. To achieve victory, the US should deploy at least 150,000 combat troops into Afghanistan to secure all borders—that includes the Swat Valley (with Pakistan’s involvement)—and conduct counter insurgency operations over a period of 180 days to achieve Enduring Freedom’s mission, after which all troops should be pulled out—in, win, and get out quick. Presidential elections should be timed to follow this operation—just watch the rush to the negotiating table then. I wrote a book http://www.strategicbookpublishing.com/AClaytonsDefense.html which in part deals with this.

[Josh Mull]

Scott,

Right. I should have more clearly drawn a line between the "American Public" and people like us who are actively involved in the debate. I think it would be strategically unwise (read: stupid) to not engage diplomatically with the insurgency.

I'll be writing something up on this very soon actually, that is the widening gulf between Obama's foreign policy and the information about it being conveyed to the American people. At this point, Bush could be considered more forthcoming. However, this issue is 100% political, not really relevant to the success or failure of the actual policies themselves.

Stan,

I'm not sure it's correct to connect the original 2001/2 Bush Administration failures in Afghanistan, which had more to do with pigheaded bureaucratic rivalries in Washington, to the Karzai/Pakistan policy of cutting deals with insurgent groups. For one thing, a ceasefire is not the same as Peace. The ceasefires don't mean the insurgency is over, they just reset the ongoing conflict from invasion/aggression to defense/retaliation. The US military (and presumably the Pakistani government) fully anticipate that the insurgents will violate the ceasefire. They will use that as legitimacy for increased military operations. A helpful parallel would be Israel and the PLO during the 70s/80s.

Also, I'm not at all confident that 150,000 troops and 180 days is the solution to the Afghanistan-Pakistan equation. I'd call this "the other Gulf War syndrome," a notion that pervaded the Department of Defense throughout the 1990s that basically says all you have to do is go in with absolutely overwhelming force, strike down your enemies with violence, and get the hell out. It didn't work in Somalia, it didn't work in Haiti, and there's no way in hell it's going to work in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's been remarked about the Gulf War, "no one gets that much free pussy twice in a lifetime."

Put simply: Counter-Insurgency is Hard.

[narayan dwivedi]

People are never wrong when they say that the US has done nothing for the people of Afghanistan, not completely. US is the only country which has used nuclear, biological and chemical weapons against masses. What else do u expect from this country, specially from the people of this country.