EDITS | Saturday, November 7, 2009 | Email | Print | 
US can’t dither on Afghanistan
Hiranmay Karlekar
One can understand US President Barack Obama’s difficulties in hammering out a new military policy for Afghanistan. On the one hand, Gen Stanley A McChrystal, the commander of American forces in the country, wants at least 40,000 troops more to shore up counter-insurgency operations, and Adm Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, more funds — the figure going round in Washington is $ 50 billion — for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to a report by Elizabeth Bumiller in The New York Times of November 4, this would be on top of the $ 130 billion the Congress has authorised for the period from October 1, 2009 to September 30, 2010. On the other, the liberal Left in the Democratic Party and Vice-President Joseph Biden oppose both demands. In Afghanistan, he has to do business with President Hamid Karzai whom he and his advisers like Mr Biden and Mr Richard Holbrooke, his pointsman for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Mr Peter Galbraith have criticised openly and sharply.
While his desire not to blunder into a course of action which would be disastrous for the US makes sense, he will do well to remember that the delay in finalising a policy and the manner in which the conflicting viewpoints are being aired, gives the impression of a divided American political establishment and a vacillating President. The result is a growing feeling that the US may either choose a self-defeating soft option or, even if it goes for the right course, will leave when the going gets tough and the body bags coming home become more numerous.
This will enable the Taliban and Al Qaeda to resist more tenaciously in the hope of victory tomorrow. It will also encourage Islamabad, which is now supposed to be in the midst of a fierce offensive against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, commonly referred to as Pakistani Taliban, not to extend the same against the Afghan Taliban waxing under the leadership of men like Sirajuddin Haqqani holed up in North Waziristan. Pakistan would continue considering them as strategic instruments with which to re-establish its dominance over Afghanistan after the US and Nato forces leave, much in the same way after its Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate and the US Central Intelligence Agency had helped create the Taliban in 1994.
This aspect has been discussed endlessly, particularly in the context of the known Pakistani design to gain ascendancy over Afghanistan in quest of strategic depth against India. Even those in that country who consider the idea hare-brained and support to the Taliban and Al Qaeda dangerous, will be inclined not to act against them for fear of retribution when they take over. Nor should the US be surprised if Mr Karzai seeks to protect his back in the event of an American withdrawal leaving him to deal with a resurgent Taliban and Al Qaeda, by striking alliances the US disapproves of. Significantly, Ahmed Rashid writes in Descent into Chaos: How the war against Islamic extremism is being lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia that “the US attack on Iraq was critical to convincing Musharraf that the United States was not serious about stabilising the region, and that it was safer for Pakistan to preserve its own national interest by clandestinely giving the Taliban refuge”. In the present instance, read delay in policy formulation in place of the Iraq war.
To a large extent, Mr Karzai’s dependence on men like Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum and Marshal Mohammad Fahim Khan, is a result of the failure of the US under President George W Bush and the West generally to provide adequate funds for war-ravaged Afghanistan’s reconstruction and enough troops and equipment to prevent a Taliban revival. In fact, the planning, money and troops that should have gone to stabilising Afghanistan and helping President Karzai to consolidate his position went to Iraq. It would be grossly unfair to blame him now for the mess that his country is getting to become.
Unfortunately, the US and its allies have been doing precisely this, ignoring not only the severe shortcomings in their own efforts but also the fact that one cannot radically transform the character of a country’s Government and root out historically entrenched corruption by waving a magic wand. Which country in the world is free from corruption? Would the economic crisis currently afflicting the world have occurred without gargantuan corruption and inefficiency in the world of American big finance? Did the US Government not contribute to it by relaxing controls during the incumbency of President Bill Clinton? And what about the massive expenses scam by British MPs and Ministers? And what about corruption in Pakistan which would now be a recipient of fresh and massive doses of US financial and military aid? Besides, can Mr Karzai or anyone else wish away Gen Dostum and Marshal Fahim Khan, the latter a former Defence Minister of Afghanistan?
Unfortunately, neither Mr Obama nor Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain seems to realise all this or the fact that their efforts to compel him to do their bidding can only undermine his position. Two examples would illustrate this point. The manner in which they arm-twisted him into accepting a run-off in the recent presidential election and his submission clearly indicated that he was bending unwillingly to pressure, which in turn could only have severely eroded his standing with Afghans who value defiant courage and independence above everything else in men, and look down upon those who stoop. Equally damaging was Mr Obama’s congratulatory message after Mr Karzai was finally declared elected President, admonishing him for failing to take on corruption and the drug trade, which he did not do during his first term, and his public commitment to do so, which followed.
One wonders whether Mr Obama’s attitude towards Mr Karzai stems from the fact that his advisers on Afghanistan include people known to be close to Pakistan which makes no secret of its hostility towards the Afghan head of state. Whatever it is, he will now have to deal with Mr Karzai and the sooner he finds a way of doing it without the former’s position the better it will be for both the US and Afghanistan. And he should announce his policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan before the military situation on the ground deteriorates further.
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