Two-Step Analysis of Mr Obama's War Plan: Step Two in Afghanistan

Latest Post: Mr Obama’s War for/on Pakistan-Afghanistan - Holes in the Middle
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There's a cold reality in today's Obama Administration war plan, with its projection of Pakistan as Crisis Number One. Yet there's also a bit of magic: in its presentation of Crisis Number Two in Afghanistan, the Administration has given the media two marvellous diversions.

AFGHANISTAN: THE HOLE IN THE MIDDLE

The first diversion is the headline of 4000 US trainers for Afghan security forces. This will enable the Administration to proclaim that its plan is to ensure Afghanistan can protect and police itself, offering the long-term prospect of a drawdown of American forces. In reality, however, this token deployment will do little to confront the immediate situation with the insurgency.

It does, however, allow Obama and Co., after the showdown compromise with the military earlier this year over troop increases, to show that it is still committed to "tough love" in Afghanistan. The commanders have gotten most of the 30,000 extra troops they wanted, and the Administration is making it well-known that this is not an "exit strategy".

The second bit of magic is the proclamation that the Administration, focusing on the threat of Al Qa'eda, is moving away from the Bush strategy of "democracy promotion" in Afghanistan. This is --- let me see if I can find the right academic word here --- rubbish.

The Bush Administration, beyond its surface proclamations of "liberation" after the fall of the Taliban, never saw spread of democracy as the mission in Afghanistan. Once it had installed the "right" leader in Hamid Karzai (yes, I know the obvious irony, given today's situation), the Bushmen --- as any examination of their approach to "nation-building" will establish in about two second --- just wanted a military presence to keep the Taliban in check while they moved on to their top goal of knocking off Saddam Hussein.

How, then, to read this convenient fiction? It has less to do with the strategy against the Afghan insurgency and more to do with the American strategy vis-a-vis the Government in Kabul and, beyond that, some folks in Pakistan.

Sharp-eyed readers will note that there is nothing in the advance spin on the Obama plan on possible talks with "former" insurgents, even though this has been in the wind for some time. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates held out the prospect last year, and it has been conflated with the Iraq precedent of the magical "surge" and linking up with Sunni groups.

But who is to talk to these "former" insurgents or "moderate" Taliban, given that is unlikely that these groups will go into direct discussions with the US? One possibility is that President Karzai could set himself up as the interlocutor --- indeed, he has been pressing for this for some time --- but Washington no longer trusts their former front-man. Another possibility is that the negotiations could go via Pakistan, but that is even more problematic. A former CIA official spelled it out for Time magazine:

[Pakistani contacts with] people we regard as enemies are not so much trying to aid them against America as preparing for a future when Americans and NATO are no longer in Afghanistan.

But the US doesn't want to get out of Afghanistan, at least not in the near-future, so it needs a "reliable" political centre to hold together its strategy.

And that is precisely what it does not have. The Karzai Administration is not to be trusted, but Washington has no successor lined up (thus its very "un-democratic" admission that Karzai will win re-election, whether that comes in April or August, and there really should be a "Chief Executive" or "Prime Minister" to offset him). The US has given up on NATO, since European countries will not increase their military investment, which rules out another external lever (if there was any prospect it might work) for change in Kabul.

So Washington is stuck putting more troops into Afghanistan with no strategy to underpin the commitment.
The alternative is to start striking agreements with local political leaders --- again under whatever label you want to give them --- but the US is not even in the lead position in those manoeuvres. Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and of course Pakistan can claim more of a foothold in various parts of Afghanistan. Perhaps more importantly, the illusion that the US can control a local movement --- the greatest magic trick of all, carried out in Petraeus Wonderland in Iraq from 2007 --- looks shaky here.

Of course, this reading may be premature. It may all come clear, without smoke and mirrors, when Hillary Clinton addresses the international summit in The Hague next week. But the more I look at this, the more it seems to a leak put out by the Obama Administration in January: if they could put in some troops, it would buy time. And then --- somewhere, somehow, much later --- they might figure out what to do.

Figuring out what to do, however, seems to be a solution via the elimination of the Pakistan "safe havens". If that is true, then more than seven years after 9-11, the magic isn't that Afghanistan is no longer to be a "democracy". The magic is that it has become sideshow.

It's a very expensive, very destructive sideshow, of course, but it's still a supporting act for the main event being set up across the border.

Mr Obama's War: Today Proves Pakistan is Number One

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Related Post: Two-Step Analysis of Mr Obama’s War Plan: Step One in Pakistan

The Obama Administration's long-awaited plan to solve/save Afghanistan and Pakistan is revealed today, but officials have now leaked two headline plans.

First, they have trumpeted the despatch of 4000 troops, along with civilian specialists, to train and assist Afghan police and security forces. This is more token than significant: it is a sop to the military, which got "only" 20,000+ of the 30,000 additional troops it wanted for this year, and it props up the Administration's spin that it is going to make the Afghans self-sufficient in providing their security.

Second, "the president...will call on Congress to pass a bill that triples U.S. aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year over five years". The aid is not new: after 9-11, Pakistan has received up to $1 billion a year for being a "good" ally in the War on Terror.

The symbolism, however, is very new, far from token, and far from insignificant. Pakistan is going "bad", so this is aid not to reward it but to rescue it. Specifically, it is the payment to the Pakistani Government as the US tries to take out the "safe havens" in the northwest of the country.

Pakistan, not Afghanistan, is now the immediate American priority. The economic aid will be accompanied by more airstrikes and Wild West-style rewards for turning in bad guys like Baitullah Mehsud.

Only one tiny problem: there is no sign --- none --- of Washington strategy for the fundamental problem in Pakistan: how is the country's political stability to be assured?

More through the day....

Afghanistan: Former Taliban Ready for Talks with US

Related Post: Waiting for the US Strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan

As we noted earlier today, we're still trying to assess how significant talks with former enemies, such as the Taliban, will be in the Obama Administration's strategy on Afghanistan-Pakistan. So this article from Global Post, based on the interviews of Jean Mackenzie with two former high-ranking members of the Taliban, takes on added significance. in the Mullah Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil (pictured), who was foreign minister during the Taliban regime, is of special interest: in October 2001 he tried to reach a deal with the United States , via Pakistan, in which Osama bin Laden would be handed over for trial.

EXCLUSIVE: FORMER TALIBAN SEE OPENING FOR TALKS
Jean MacKenzie

KABUL — Talking to the Taliban is all the rage.

Whether for or against, upbeat or down, everyone seems to be weighing in on the wisdom or folly of negotiating with the black-turbaned crowd.

President Barack Obama has even suggested that his administration may reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban.

GlobalPost has gained unique access here in Kabul to two former high-ranking officials of the now-deposed Taliban government to hear their view of the possibility of an opening for dialogue.

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, who was the Taliban’s ambassador to Pakistan, and Mullah Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil, who served as foreign minister during the Taliban regime, confirmed in separate interviews that such talks were feasible, but that they would need to begin with a fundamental understanding that the view of this conflict looks very different from an Afghan-Taliban perspective.

Both emphasized they do not represent Mullah Omar and the Taliban’s active militant insurgency, but offered valuable insight into the likely debate within the Taliban’s inner circle about the various overtures from Washington to open talks.

Before any serious discussions can take place, they say, the warring parties at least have to agree on what they are fighting about. To date, that fairly obvious goal has been shrouded by rhetoric and misunderstanding.

Read the full article....

Mr Obama's War? Waiting for the US Strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan

Related Post: Afghanistan - Former Taliban Ready for Talks with US

So what is the Obama Administration's new approach to American intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

Really. What is it?

Administration officials had set up the media this week for a dramatic re-launch of the US strategy, based on a series of reports for the President. The latest study, headed by Obama campaign advisor and former CIA officer Bruce Riedel, was on Obama's desk on Monday. US envoy Richard Holbrooke was holding forth for the media and briefing NATO members; less publicly, CIA Director Leon Panetta was visiting Pakistan. The President was telling 60 Minutes on Sunday night, "What we're looking for is a comprehensive strategy. And there's gotta be an exit strategy."

This spinning, however, does not add up to a new approach. For Afghanistan, there is still no detail on US troop levels, American non-military programmes, the contributions from Washington's allies. And for Pakistan, which Obama's people are now putting as Number One Crisis, there is no sense of how the expansion of missile strikes and covert operations matches up to a political approach, either towards the "sanctuaries" in the Northwest Frontier Provinces or towards the central Government in Islamabad.

What we have gotten instead from the US is vacuous cheerleading posing as "analysis". Jim Hoagland on The Washington Post wrote a love letter to "Gen. David Petraeus and diplomat Richard Holbrooke [who] are as smart as they come". Even worse, commentators like Jackson Diehl of The Washington Post and David Brooks of The New York Times have been treated to a Grand Tour of US bases in Afghanistan so they can parrot the words of American military commanders, "Over time this will work -- it has worked over and over again through history" (Diehl) and "When you put more boots on the ground, you not only augment your army’s firing power, you give it the capacity to experiment". (Brooks)

This puffery should be set aside for the leaked ideas coming out in British newspapers. The outgoing US ambassador in Afghanistan, William Wood, tells The Observer that "America would be prepared to discuss the establishment of a political party, or even election candidates representing the Taliban, as part of a political strategy that would sit alongside reinforced military efforts". The Times writes of an American approach linking economic aid, a build-up of Afghan security forces and police, and a crack-down on heroin production.

Most striking, sources tell The Guardian, "The US and its European allies are ­preparing to plant a high-profile figure in the heart of the Kabul government in a direct challenge to the Afghan president." Expecting that President Hamid Karzai will win re-election in August, despite its best efforts to build up a rival candidate, the US will insist on a "Chief Executive" or "Prime Minister".

The US strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan --- really, what is it?

Breaking News: Suicide Bombings in Iraq, Pakistan

In the northern Iraq town of Jalawla, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at the funeral of the father of Kurdish regional government official Hameed Khudadat, killing at least 25 people and wounding 45.

Eight people were killed and 10 wounded in a bombing west of Baghdad, while a suicide bomber killed a policeman and wounded eight in Tal Afar.

In Pakistan, a suicide bomber walked up to a station of the special intelligence branch of the Islamabad police and blew himself up, killing an officer. Geo News report a total of three dead. Two police officers were critically wounded.

It is the second suicide bombing in the area in a week.