Afghanistan's Inconvenient Truth

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright July 14, 2010
All Rights Reserved.                                

             Rattling the GOP establishment, Republican National Committed chairman Michael Steele jangled nerves June 30 shooting off his mouth about the Afghan War.  Seeing dismal prospects of success, Steele roiled former GOP presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), declaring that Afghanistan has been the graveyard of civilizations, believing the prospects for victory were dismal.  McCain, the ranking GOP member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) blasted Steele, calling for his resignation as RNC chairman.  Only two weeks later, the GOP and Democratic foreign policy establishment echoed similar views about Afghanistan.  Calling the situation in Afghanistan “a lack of clarity,” Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, questioned the administration’s strategy.

             McCain and other Republicans rejected the idea that Afghanistan was a lost cause.  They completely ignore Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s close ties to the Taliban—the very enemy that we’re supposedly fighting.  Karzai’s brother is also involved in the illicit opium trade.  When you add to that Karzai stole an internationally monitored election in 2009, it makes you wonder what the U.S. is doing in the  desolate mountainous outpost.  President Barack Obama has gone along with the program, adding 21,000 troops only two weeks after taking office.  Ten months later, Dec. 2, 2009, Barack acquiesced again, adding 30,000 more troops.  More recently, U.S. Afghan Commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal was forced to resign June 22 after making disparaging remarks about the White House in “Rolling Stone” magazine.  Escalating the Afghan War has hurt Barack’s approval ratings.

            Only three weeks after Sept. 11, President George W. Bush launched Operation Enduring Freedom, mobilizing U.S. forces to topple the Taliban.  Taliban’s one-eyed leader Mullah Mohammed Omar denied that his government coddled Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11.  U.S. forces succeeded in driving the Taliban out of Kabul Nov. 15, 2001, in one of the most successful military campaigns in U.S. history.  By Dec. 17, Bin Laden and Omar had escaped Tora Bora to Pakistan, eluding U.S. forces that threw  the current mission into chaos.  With key members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban no longer in Afghanistan, it raises doubts about the Afghan War.  “There are significant elements of movement forward in many areas, but I do not yet see a definitive turning point in either direction,” said U.S. Afghan Ambassador Richard Holbrooke questioning the U.S. mission.

            When Barack bumped out McChrystal, he went back to former Iraq Commander and current Centcom Commander Gen. David Petraeus.  Petraeus won himself plaudits leading Bush’s “troop surge,” eventually driving some insurgents out of Iraq.  It’s hard to say whether Bin Laden had called back the dogs, redeploying to new or old battlefields in Yemen, Somalia and other parts of East Africa.  “It may be interesting to propose new strategies for the war in Afghanistan, but it is also pointless,” said defense expert Anthony Cordesman at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.  Despite the change in leadership, Cordesman sees no differences in U.S. strategy between McChrystal and Petraeus.  He sees real problems for the U.S. military trying to ferret out the Taliban’s camouflaged guerrilla force from the civilian population in Kandahar or elsewhere.

            While GOP leaderships would like to blame Steele for raising doubts about Afghanistan, key members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee also concur.  “The problem is that the key element of this strategy is the one over which we have the least control, and that is the willingness and ability of Afghans to assume ownership of the efforts,” said Chairman Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.).  Kerry’s talking about Karzai’s close ties tithe Taliban and opium trade, rendering an impossible distinction between the enemy and allied forces.  It’s become difficult to define what winning looks like.  Kerry believes the U.S. has embarked on an unending nation-building project, no longer fighting a focused war against a specific enemy.  When Barack agreed to 30,000 more troops last December, the mission was unclear.  Today’s offensive in Taliban-controlled Kandahar has fizzled.

            Afghanistan has long since lost its national security significance to the United States.  Since Bush toppled the Taliban Nov. 15, 2001, the U.S. let key elements of the al-Qaeda and the Taliban escape to Pakistan a month later.  While Bush neglected Afghanistan and made an unfortunate wrong turn in Iraq March 20, 2003, the Karzai government no longer supports U.S. national security.  When Karzai stole the Aug. 29, 2009 election, Obama should have retooled his Afghan strategy, namely, accelerated his timetable for withdrawal.  “Arguably we could make progress for decades—on security, on employment, good governance, women’s rights, other goals—expending billions of dollars each years without ever reaching as satisfying conclusion,” said Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee.  Nation-building is no real U.S. strategy.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.