FUBARistan
The military also uses the term “goat rope,” which might be more appropriate to Afghan conditions. Whichever. This war has endured beyond the point at which we can expect results commensurate with the enormous effort involved.
The weekend’s news is particularly discouraging. Afghans killed two Americans advising the Interior Ministry. Ambassador Crocker has sent a back channel cable calling for more troops and military effort to deal with safe havens in Pakistan. Violent, even deadly, protests of the burning of Korans by American troops continue.
But it is not just today. These incidents are symbolic. We haven’t got the kind of relationship with the government in Afghanistan required for a proper counter-insurgency effort. That would require a clean, authoritative regime ready to risk its own and fully committed to the fight. Karzai and his minions are lacking in all those respects. It would also require the Americans to know something about Afghan sensitivities. We are manifestly lacking in this important respect. The Afghans are tired of the foreign presence. Nor have we got the kind of backing in Pakistan that war requires of an ally and massive aid recipient.
It is not, as Ryan Crocker suggests, a question of fatigue. He is right to say we shouldn’t quit because we are tired of the effort, provided the effort can produce the results we want. I don’t see much chance of that any longer.
It is time to cut our losses. This is what the Administration is trying to do under the guise of negotiations with the Taliban, but on a timeline that would waste the better part of another three more years and who knows how many hundreds of American lives. Accelerating the turnover of primary security responsibilities to the Afghans will still leave many Americans exposed to the kind of murderous impulse or plan that led to the losses at the Ministry of Interior. Embedded advisers are the most exposed of all our personnel.
There are two main arguments against accelerating the withdrawal to the end of this year: the Afghans need the time to prepare, and the President needs to avoid an American retreat/defeat before the November election. Both arguments are so reminiscent of Vietnam that it is hard for someone like me who opposed that war to give them a fair hearing. I’ll leave that to others.
Still, we have to recognize that early withdrawal from Afghanistan could have highly negative consequences. These include renewal of the civil war, with the Uzbeks and Tajiks of the Northern Alliance clashing with Pushtun Taliban in the south, a fight that the Taliban won in the 1990s. Assuming the Northern Alliance attracts most of the Afghanistan National Army and gets U.S. and Indian support while Pakistan backs the Taliban, the outcome might be different this time. Stalemate and partition would be a distinct possibility.
There is also a real possibility that early withdrawal will put Pakistan’s stability at risk, as the Taliban move their safe havens into Afghanistan and Al Qaeda takes up the cudgels against Islamabad, whose nuclear weapons are both an attractive target and a good reason for the Americans to stay involved. If I really thought staying almost three more years would improve our odds in managing this problem, I suppose I might try to get us to stay longer. But the problem could arise no matter how long we stay in Afghanistan, which seems either unwilling or unable to protect itself from extremist dominance in parts of the south and east.
I don’t really think we’ll “abandon” Afghanistan, if only because the Republicans would make a lot of political hay out of an early withdrawal and whatever chaos ensues. But I’ve yet to meet an ordinary citizen who cares much about our troops or civilians in Afghanistan, including those politicians who see Islamic terror behind every tree. I do care, and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that we are wasting their courage in an effort that is bound to fail.
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I wonder how much political harm the Democrats would actually suffer if the withdrawal were to be accelerated.
There’s the example of the response to the withdrawal from Somalia after the Black Hawk incident to consider. Clinton made a point of saying that we would not leave immediately, that we would stay to the end of the current commitment (a 6-month period, was it?), but he took all the heat that rushing for the exit would have resulted in. So – avoiding getting out early may not buy the Democrats anything.
On the other hand, no matter what Obama does, about anything, there’s 30% of the population that will never vote for him. The people he has to convince are the ones who wanted us out of Afghanistan when he was elected and who feel disappointed if not betrayed that Americans are still there, getting killed by people who are willing to kill each other over a book-burning by Americans. These Democrats are not going to vote for any of the current Republican candidates, but their staying home in November could give the Republican the election. (Independents will probably base their decision on the state of the economy, meaning whatever happens in Afghanistan will be irrelevant in determining their vote.)
There are other considerations – Putin’s talking about getting involved in Afghanistan again, for example – but politically, getting out early wouldn’t seem to hurt and might help.