BY SARA SCHONHARDT
NEW YORK – President Barack Obama announced a changeover from one war to another Friday when he outlined his timetable for withdrawal from Iraq and committed an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan.
The move comes weeks after suicide blasts in the highly fortified Afghan capital highlighted the urgent need for a US policy review. But the plan fails to set down clear objectives, such as a strategy for deployment or goals for economic and political development, which downplays strength of the troop build-up.
Although Obama and his top military brass say the situation in Afghanistan cannot be solved by military means alone, in recent weeks they’ve spoken of little other than refocusing US efforts on countering the Taliban insurgency along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Colonel Martin Schweitzer believes the additional troops are necessary, but said security is only part of US operations in the country. As commander of the 82nd Airborne Division based in eastern Afghanistan, Schweitzer began working with anthropologists in 2007 to better understand tribal relations and formulate culturally appropriate strategies to improving security. What is really needs are “enablers,” he said, referring to the economists, agriculturalists and transportation experts required to rebuild the country.
Other military advisors say the US needs to define what it hopes to achieve in Afghanistan. Obama’s troop commitment meets just half of US military commanders’ request for 30,000, a number based not on a policy review but on how many forces have been available due to the war in Iraq.
“Empirically, 30,000 troops would stabilize the security situation, but we also need to determine what our long-term goals are in the region,” said Colonel Kevin Owens, a military fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Without a clear change in course, he said, more troops will not improve the situation, particularly if there is not a corresponding focus on support for governance, rule of law and economic growth.
According to Owens, former commander of the Combined Task Force Bayonet/Region in Kandahar, the Taliban are not strongly supported by the Afghan people, they’ve simply emerged as the only alternative to a corrupt and inefficient government.
Making the Debate
Discussions of US policy toward Afghanistan often hinge on three central issues: corruption and bad governance, the narcotics trade and security.
Obama has discussed counterterrorism and economic development strategies with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who acknowledges that the volatile northwest region of this country serves as a safe-haven for al-Qaeda. Other administration officials are throwing support behind provincial Afghan leaders.
“There is less of a tendency to see people as good guys and bad guys,” said CFR’s defense policy fellow Stephen Biddle, who favors more force in dealing with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a darling of the Bush administration.
Lately, Karzai has fallen out of favor among officials who blame his corruption-plagued government for Afghanistan’s instability. Yet some say Karzai is trapped between maintaining support from his foreign backers and his need to placate the country’s powerful Islamic clergy.
“I see him as a tragic figure who is a prisoner of a cultural society based on tribal loyalties,” said Paul Jabber, a former scholar for the CIA’s counter-terrorism center and current president of Globicom, a financial services firm.
Karzai’s inability to overcome corruption in a culture marked by and impunity makes Jabber question whether another leader could do better. Afghanistan has never maintained a competent central government, he said, noting that expending resources on building institutions and cracking down on corruption denies them to the United States’ real mission – fighting al Qaeda.
“We cannot go from fighting al Qaeda to nation building in Afghanistan, where no one has succeeded in doing this for hundreds of years,” Jabber said.
“The Taliban is not our enemy because of human rights,” he continued. “If we define an enemy in those terms, we have to define our enemies more broadly across the Middle East. The Taliban is our enemy only because of its connections with al Qaeda.”
The International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based organization committed to resolving deadly conflict, has called for enforcing the rule of law and reforming the distrusted police and judiciary in helping to battle the insurgency.
Some say this requires spending beyond the $3.8 billion devoted in 2007-08 to build the Afghan National Police. Colonel Schweitzer, however, said ensuring that Afghans can provide for their own security requires partnership and training.
Reaching out for support
The February 11 bombings in Kabul give credence to concerns about an escalating insurgency, with Interior Minister Hanif Atmar describing the attacks as a indication that “the enemy is able to get weapons and explosives into the capital.”
The Taliban still lack the strength and resources to win in head-on combat with international forces, but according to the Joanna Nathan, the Crisis Group’s senior analyst in Afghanistan, the Taliban are wining by another strategy – propaganda.
“A new emphasis on spectacular attacks in 2008, such as the June jailbreak in Kandahar and an assault on Kabul’s only five-star hotel in January, aim to erode international consensus on the need to stay the course,” she wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
Rather than retreat further from involvement in Afghanistan, however, policy makers are pressuring Obama to clarify US objectives.
When it comes to military goals, Owens said the US is constrained by allies that have not shown full support or capability. A Dutch brigade does not equal a US brigade, he said, explaining that the heavy lifting is done differently by NATO forces that are better trained for infrastructure rebuilding.
Nation building and confronting the Taliban are separate strategies, however, and US envoy Richard Holbrooke describes the latter battle as far tougher. According to Jabber, the Middle East scholar, talk of nation building is merely political and should not remove the focus from fighting simply because fighting is a more difficult option.
Faced with myriad policy prescriptions, President Obama, is likely to delay any decision making until a newly initiated ground-up review of current Afghanistan policy is completed. But many wait his decision with nervous anticipation. “Afghanistan provides a way for Obama to define himself as president,” Jabber said. “It proved convenient for him to show interest in the war during the election, the question is to what extent will this test his understanding and commitment to the real war on terrorism?”