Afghanistan: More Difficult Than the Economy

The Economic problems may be difficult because they are so profound and were, for so long, untreated, but they are more susceptible to being addressed in a positive way than other problems in the world that our new President will have to address.

Afghanistan, for instance, is a more difficult problem to solve than the economic recession. First, for all the reasons I listed in a previous blog (Afghanistan: Another Word for Failure). Second, because we do not know the basic rules of the game and/or there are no basic rules of the game and/or the rules of the game, unknown to us, ensure that no one wins, at least for long.

It can be hoped that the President's envoys who have visited recently will return with the sobering news that there is no agreement on what the mission is in Afghanistan and among the various options, none seem to be within reach of actually being achievable.

But, there might be some wisdom in beginning with correcting the srategic mistakes in the original mission which was also confusing as it had several parts - find Osama Bin Laden, disarticulate Al Quaeda, overthrow the Taliban, do something to stabilize the nation.

There is only one reason to be in or around Afghanistan: to disarticulate Al Quaeda, or more realistically, to severely disrupt Al Quaeda's ability to strike against Western targets in the West. Everything else is peripheral and not within our real capacity to address or not really our problem (the "our" here means the "Nato Group").

the original strategy was to find Osama and disarticulate Al Quaeda by winning a proxy war with the Taliban. It was mistake, like trying to kill a fly with a sledgehammer.

to the degree possible, we ought to forget about the Taliban as our enemy. They don't have nuclear bombs or missles and they are not a terrorist group in the classical sense. They just terrorize the population with their fundamentalist laws and inhumane punishments.

There is no strategic victory possible by continuing to put our troops or NATO troops in the middle of the Taliban struggle with the Afghan government and others, for control of territory. This is the job of the Afghan army. That the Afghan army needs training, etc, might be true and that might be a special mission of one of the "allies" But the "surge" in Afghanistan is absolutely impossible because there is no Sunni population to arm and pay - the poppy crop is able to arm and pay all the various forces now.

What we need is to surround the area with intelligence about where Al Quaeda is present and what they are doing, and develop military or police actions in partnership with Afghans and Pakistans who actually do oppose terror to continue to make it difficult for them to operate and extremely restrictive in what they can do.

It is time for a Gideon strategy - less troops who know what they are doing with a very specific mission related of intelligent application of international law enforcement actions against terrorist groups which threaten all of the NATO countries and many in the Middle East. A protected base of operations or two and offshore naval presence ought to do the trick while the United Nations works with the Afghan government to see if they can stabilize the country and give that government some room to work.

Then, we need very good diplomacy to begin to resolve all of the untreated questions related to Pakistan, a country which does have nuclear weapons.

It should be mentioned to President Obama the historic difficulty to undo an escalation - one leads to another. There ought to be a huge space for reconsideration of any plans to send more troops. A decision to increase troops has no other end than a further request for more troops somewhere down the line.

President Obama does not need to prove he can be the Alpha Male on this one. He needs to prove that he can be Omega Man (last one standing) by using real intelligence. Make Peace, not War is still good advice.