SEVEN YEARS ago, President-elect Obama vilified the Iraq war as the kind of dumb, rash war he would oppose. But as he spearheads an Iraq-like surge into Afghanistan, I wonder whether he is himself committing the American colossus into another reckless and foolish quagmire.
Conventional wisdom previously held that Afghanistan was “the right war.” We didn’t need to find elusive weapons to justify going in after those that carried out 9/11. It was the most concrete battle in the notoriously amorphous “war on terrorism.” Our initial advances were praised, while subsequent setbacks were faulted solely (and rather unfairly) on the Bush administration’s Baghdad distraction. Now Obama thinks he can “refocus” his attention on Kabul by doubling the U.S. presence there, intending to deploy up to 30,000 more troops over the next year or so.
But that conventional wisdom is now proving both unwise and increasingly unconventional. For one, experts are beginning to comprehend that Afghanistan is not Iraq. It is a much bigger country, with incredibly rugged terrain and porous borders. Its 28 percent literacy rate is barely a third of Baghdad’s, life expectancy is a dismal 44 years, and it sells nothing to the world except opium. It is the graveyard of the world’s empires, frustrating the ubiquitous British in the 19th century and the ruthless Soviets in the 20th (they had an eye-popping 100,000 troops). And, unlike Iraq, it has no tradition of centralized authority, with a dizzying array of tribes whose loyalties bend quite readily with the prevailing wind. Surging past these grim realities will be a gargantuan task.
The realities on the ground are equally bleak. Yes, seven years of U.S. and NATO involvement have led to improvements in health, education, and governance. But Afghanistan still has a corrupt central government, overextended and incompetent security forces, and a drug-based economy. Meanwhile, the previously south-centered Taliban has spread across 75 percent of the country, inflicting more casualties on coalition troops more frequently. Even last year’s doubling of U.S. and NATO troops failed to stem this. As for Al Qaeda, it has largely fled to Pakistan via the countries’ leaky border. Given all this, Afghanistan specialist Barnett Rubin soberly concludes that “there is no foreseeable trajectory under which the Afghan state will become a self-sustaining member of the international community” in 10 years. In other words, fixing Afghanistan will require a constant deluge of resources, not just a spontaneous surge.
Does this mean that Washington ought to “cut and run” from Kabul? Absolutely not. The United States must not forget that the seeds of 9/11 were planted when it decided to disengage from Afghanistan instead of rebuilding it after the U.S.-trained Afghan mujahideen defeated the USSR. Washington’s failure to construct a centrist government transformed Afghanistan into a cradle of Taliban fundamentalism in the mid-1990s and a sanctuary for Al Qaeda thereafter. Neglecting this war-ravaged and battered country once again would not only display an ignorance of history, but an utter disregard for long-term national security. Kabul was the birthplace of 9/11, and we should do everything in our power to make sure it does not serve that role again.
But it does mean that Obama must adopt a more modest notion of victory in Afghanistan and communicate the difficulty and importance of this task to the American people. We will probably have to talk to moderate insurgent factions who we don’t like in order to form a more inclusive national government. We have to stop pretending that Afghanistan can be governed centrally from Kabul, and balance national institutions with local ones such as the village shuras. We can’t keep on yelling “surge, baby, surge!” when we know, as Afghan former interior minister Ali Jalali has written, that pure security concerns should not subordinate justice, the rule of law or state-building. And we won’t be able to solve our Afghan dilemma without tackling the myriad related regional problems, from India-Pakistan tensions to Iran.
Thus far, the Obama transition team has barely sounded ominous warnings about the arduousness and adversity of the task in Kabul. Gen. Petraeus, Chief of U.S. Central Command, came closest when he said Afghanistan will require a “sustained, substantial” commitment. But alliterative, vague rhetoric just won’t do. The surge will not work as briskly or as well as it did in Iraq due to Afghanistan’s conditions. And, with their pockets tight, Americans will have little patience for wars they can’t win or won’t benefit from. If Obama does not handle and sell Afghanistan pragmatically and wholeheartedly, it could become his Vietnam.
In his often quoted 2002 anti-Iraq war speech, Obama warned the nation not to “travel down that hellish path blindly,” for it would involve making “an awful sacrifice in vain.” That was an eloquent speech. Now let’s hope he practices what he preaches in Afghanistan.
Prashanth Parameswaran’s column usually appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
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