Obama's test in Afghanistan

By Dr Maleeha Lodhi

The writer is a former envoy to the US and the UK, and a former editor of The News.
President Barak Obama weighs his options on Afghanistan amid dwindling public support in America for the war. Political debate has escalated in Congress and the media about both the aims of the western mission and its chance of success, at a time when there is growing unease within a fractious international coalition whose members see drift and a lack of strategic clarity in Washington.
President Obama has promised a comprehensive policy re-assessment before making decisions on strategy. He has said he would not be rushed into making up his mind about sending more troops until he had "absolute clarity about strategy".
While he mulls over the assessment submitted late last month by General Stanley A McChrystal, the commander of US and NATO forces, the fraud-ridden presidential election in Afghanistan has thrown Washington's political strategy into disarray.
With no legitimate political structure in place this denudes any counterinsurgency plan of its most critical requirement. Although frenetic damage limitation efforts by western diplomats are in progress, the uncertainty created by a deeply flawed election is feeding into growing public doubts in the US as well as in Europe.
As American casualties have risen, public support for the war has waned. A series of opinion polls indicate the changing public mood in America and rising war weariness in the midst of pressing domestic concerns.
Polls show that the American public is deeply sceptical about President Obama's view that Afghanistan is a "war of necessity". A Washington Post-ABC poll found 51 per cent saying that the war is not worth fighting while 46 per cent said it is. Other polls have also found that the majority are now opposed to a troop surge.
It is among President Obama's own party that support for the war has been flagging. Leading Democrats have been calling on President Obama to resist requests for more troops. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has warned that there is little appetite in Congress to authorize additional forces beyond the 21,000 that are already on their way and which will take the total of US forces to 68,000 by year end. Liberal Democrats like Senator Russel Feingold have urged a "flexible timetable" to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan.
With most Democrats opposed to continuing or expanding the conflict, Obama has been placed in the awkward position of relying more on the Republicans for support in the war.
As the counterinsurgency mission in Afghanistan has become almost entirely Americanized, this has made it even harder to garner domestic support. Eliciting such backing seems to increasingly rest on internationalizing the military effort but the western coalition itself is afflicted by dissension.
It is in this challenging environment that the White House is reflecting on the recommendations made by General McChrystal. The bulk of this review of reviews was leaked last week. In the 66-page report the general describes the situation in Afghanistan as "serious but with success still achievable". He warns that unless he is provided more troops and a robust counterinsurgency strategy the war may be lost. He suggests that the aim of the military engagement should be to protect the population and unify the coalition effort.
Last Friday McChrystal submitted a formal request to the Pentagon for additional forces, possibly as many as 40,000 troops. The administration had earlier asked the general to delay making this request, to get inputs from civilians and outsiders to rethink overall strategy.
The debate over troop numbers is really one about how deeply to commit to a conflict that has already exceeded American combat engagement in the two World Wars combined. The debate so far has been polarizing. Republicans like Senator John McCain have called for committing "decisive military force". Powerful Democrats have argued against deeper involvement in a war in which an escalation strategy offers no guarantee of success and exposes the US to the risk of being bogged down in a Vietnam-style quagmire.
The debate has also pitted Vice President Joe Biden and key Congressional leaders who advocate a narrow counterterrorism approach that focuses on Al Qaeda and those like General McChrystal who are pressing for a broader counter insurgency strategy.
It is now more than apparent that the Obama administration rushed into a policy review of Afghanistan and hastily announced its conclusions in March 2009, sixty days after assuming power. This review represented a compromise between different views and sought to bridge the minimalist/maximalist approaches by offering something to everybody. What followed was more a statement of intent than an actual plan.
What was rolled out on the ground reflected little break with past. For all the emphasis on a civilian surge and a stronger diplomatic thrust, only a military strategy was implemented, on which virtually all the reliance was placed. And as the "new approach" was pursued without taking hard decisions mission drift followed.
President Obama now confronts tough choices that many believe he sought to avoid in the first seven months of his presidency. The immediate decision is whether to accede to the military's request for more troops or to scale back and redefine both the mission and its goals. His administration probably calculates that it has less than a year (as mid-term Congressional elections are then due) to show progress before public support disappears.
The choice for him should not be one between abandoning Afghanistan and pursuing an open-ended military engagement. Both would be destabilizing for the region. They are also unfeasible. The challenge is to find the best way of preventing the country from being a haven for terrorist networks but avoiding a course in where only a military solution is pursued.
He can no longer take the decisions that are necessary without addressing strategic questions: Is the goal of the military mission now simply the avoidance of defeat? What does "success" in Afghanistan really mean? Can Afghanistan be stabilized by just military means without applying non-military elements of strategy? This is what another troop surge implies. Is it at all feasible for outsiders to undertake nation building?
s are neutralized as much by political as by military means, how can a viable political strategy be fashioned in the aftermath of the fraud-stricken Afghan election? How can talks with the insurgents be initiated? On what terms? And with whom?
If training and expanding the Afghan National Army and police is the basis on which an ultimate exit plan depends how can progress be expected when that process remains skewed in favour of non-Pashtuns? How can such forces take over more responsibility for their country's security if they suffer from this critical deficit as well as other disabilities in training and professionalism?
It is how President Obama addresses these questions that future stability in Afghanistan may hinge. He has shown a sense of realism in stating in recent interviews that he does not believe in an indefinite occupation and is not interested in being in Afghanistan to "save face".
He needs above all to recognize the need for a transition strategy that includes a process of reconciliation undertaken by Afghans themselves, investing seriously in more representative and viable Afghan security forces, considering a peace keeping force from Muslim countries as a 'bridging step' and forging a regional compact. Unless a radically different tack is followed the outcome may not be any different than it has in the past eight years.
Sep29,2009
Courtesy: The News