At Obsidian Wings, Eric Martin discusses how the recent, blatantly fraudulent Afghanistan election effects the prospects of U.S. success there.
Due to the complexity and tenacity of the multi-layered, multi-faceted conflict that we are seeking to address as an outside presence with limited resources and staying power, we are forced to bank on a miraculous combination of luck, good fortune and skill in order to pull off an outcome that, if all goes well, might come to fruition some 15 years and a couple trillion dollars down the road (with many thousands of NATO soldiers lost in the interim). But all is not going well, far from it. One of the most crucial political watersheds has played out in worst-case scenario terms. COIN will not fix this. It’s well past time we abandoned what George Kennan called the “stubborn pursuit of extravagant and unpromising objectives.”
In addition to the other (in my opinion, extremely unpersuasive) reasons for maintaining a huge U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, Democrats may also be motivated to stay in Afghanistan because they’re afraid of the worst-case scenario for future US elections.
Our strategy in Afghanistan cannot prevent future terrorist attacks against the U.S.; there are many failed states in the world other than Afghanistan, which al Qaeda or other terrorists could use as a base while attacking the U.S.. Our presence in Afghanistan doesn’t prevent future terrorist attacks; it just relocates the people planning the attacks, from Afghanistan to other locations.
From the point of view of the Obama administration, however, that prospect must be a pretty big elephant in the room. Suppose the US greatly reduces its presence in Afghanistan, and then there’s a terrorist attack in early 2011, organized by an al Qaeda group which — had we not pulled out of Afghanistan — would have organized the exact same attack from one of the ungoverned areas of Pakistan?
The US wouldn’t be any worse off a result — the US civilians killed in such an attack would be just as dead in either case. But the Democratic Party would be much, much worse off. Any terrorist attack is bad — but a terrorist attack that can be directly blamed on a specific policy decision by a Democratic prescient, would wipe out the Democrats electorally. I honestly can’t imagine a bigger boon to Republicans.
I’m not saying that the Obama people aren’t sincere about their reasons for wanting to maintain our huge military commitment to Afghanistan. But I wonder if the worst-case scenario for the Democratic party isn’t biasing Obama’s people towards thinking the case for war is stronger than it actually is.
I think the US should just stop pretending like there’s a terrorist threat at all. The only reason they’re trying to blow us up is because we’re bombing their country and stealing their oil!
Amp –
First; I hold no brief for the current U.S. policy in Afghanistan. I haven’t read up on it enough to form an intelligent opinion, so I’ll argue neither pro nor con on it.
Having said that:
Our strategy in Afghanistan cannot prevent future terrorist attacks against the U.S.; there are many failed states in the world other than Afghanistan, which Al-Quada or other terrorists could use as a base while attacking the U.S.. Our presence in Afghanistan doesn’t prevent future terrorist attacks; it just relocates the people planning the attacks, from Afghanistan to other locations.
It’s not clear to me that this is true. Given that we DO have a presence in Afghanistan that is demonstrably causing Al-Queda at least some problems, why hasn’t this happened already? There must be some kind of advantage for Al-Queda to stay in Afghanistan and fight it out rather than simply re-locating and being able to operate without getting bombed or shot at. I suspect that their ability to assemble the resources and personnel to launch terrorist attacks is greater in Afghanistan than in other areas of the world where they are not of the same tribes and are away from their support structures. Not that they couldn’t do it at all elsewhere, but I don’t think the situation for Al-Queda is as simple as you present.
I don’t think any strategy can prevent terrorist attacks on American soil. I think that there are strategies than can make it less likely and more difficult.
Emily; Afghanistan is not an oil-producing country, so it would be rather difficult to steal oil from there. If anything, the Taliban are funding their activities off of the money that Western addicts are paying for opium and heroin – IIRC they are the world’s leading producer of at least the raw material for such.
It has happened already.
As far as I can tell, Afghanistan is important to al Qaeda primarily for ideological reasons, not for operational reasons.
Even if a massive long-term military operation in Afghanistan does marginally reduce the chance of another terrorist attack, that doesn’t make the case for being in Afghanistan. There are huge disadvantages of the US being in Afghanistan — civilian casualties, US casualties, US costs, aligning ourselves with a corrupt and incredibly misogynistic government, opportunity costs, and so on. Is a small, hypothetical reduction in the chance of another terrorist attack really worth the costs?
Would it be possible to try diplomacy with the taliban as this guy suggests: http://attempter.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/afghanistan/
Course he seems to look over the fact that the taliban have crusaded against women, but I think he has a point about why the taliban is so popular now.
The downsides you cite are all true, Amp. I’m just not sure that your assertion that the upside of a reduction of terroristic attacks in the U.S. is minimal is valid. We know for a fact that there have been no terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 9/11/01. What the contribution to that our efforts in Afghanistan comprises is not readily quantifiable.
The support we render to foreign governments has always been difficult. Very few governments that meet American standards of liberty, freedom and justice need any support. Refusing to engage them at all leaves the field to China et. al. So we end up supporting governments that act in ways that we would not tolerate from our own government. Of course, we can try to encourage them to change or to explore alternative groups in those countries to support, but in a country like Afghanistan just about ANY government is going to be, for example, misogynistic and corrupt. There’s no good choices, just less bad ones.
I was perusing Neptunus Lex (a now-just-retired Naval officer who used to fly fighters off of carriers) and he cited an article from the New York Review of Books on the subject of the military/political situation in Afghanistan that you might find interesting.