Afghanistan: A Nice Mess Where There's Still Potential for A Positive Ending (Joe Rothstein's Commentary)

October 25, 2009

By Joe Rothstein
Editor, EINNEWS.COM

As a kid, I'd laugh out loud every time I watched Oliver Hardy turn to Stan Laurel and say, "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into." Laurel and Hardy would get into impossible situations by making stupid decisions, but ultimately, just before the end of the allotted 90 minutes of movie screen time, events would converge to get them out of trouble.

I thought of Laurel and Hardy a few days ago while attending the New America Foundation's content-rich and insightful event billed as Al Qaeda And Its Allies: The Endgame. Nothing about the current dilemma that binds the U.S. to Al Qaeda, Afghanistan and Pakistan is at all funny, of course. It's a "nice mess" in which a lot of people are being killed every day---a situation that won't be happily resolved in a movie minute.

But what struck me, listening to one speaker after another, is the seemingly impossible situation that gross incompetence and stupidity have gotten us into.

Not to belabor the past, but if the Bush administration had disabled al Qaeda by killing or capturing Osama bin Laden and his leadership while they were surrounded in the mountains of Tora Bora back in 2001, it's likely that we wouldn't be in the current "nice mess." Or, if having failed to end the conflict with Tora Bora, they had committed to that mission's pursuit a fraction of the resources that got diverted to Iraq, the terrorist groups wouldn't have had the ensuing years since to regroup, rearm and reemerge as a potent force.

Add to that all the evidence that the invasion of Iraq, the humiliation of Abu Ghraib, the continuing stain of Guantanamo and other monumental mistakes by the Laurel and Hardys who were calling the shots during the Bush years were the best terrorist recruiting tools the terrorist could ever have hoped for.

So now the Obama team has been dealt the job of writing an end to this script, and to devine something that passes for a happy ending---even though the people of the U.S., after 8 years, are understandably war weary and less inclined than ever to spend tens of billions on military adventures. And even though the Afghan government has become increasingly corrupt and untrustworthy, and we are constrained from using so many of our superior weapons because of a reluctance to cause civilian casualties and property damage.

I thought "The Endgame" was a peculiar way to bill the New America Foundation discussion, given that this conflict shows all the signs of being the "Long War" that Pentagon planners long ago presumed it will be.

But then I read testimony that New America President Steve Coll presented to the House Foreign Affairs Committee a few days earlier and saw some high cards that the Obama team might yet be able to play to work its way out of this dilemma within a reasonable time horizon.

Most importantly, Afghan public opinion continues to support the U.S. and the international forces deployed in their country. Recent polling indicates that two-thirds of the population much prefers our presence while only 10 percent or so would like to see a return to Taliban rule. We are not the hostile invaders we were to so many in Iraq. Also, both Russia and China want Afghanistan to stabilize. That means we're not seeing outside mischief from potentially serious neighborhood competitors. Our NATO allies are with us in Afghanistan as they weren't (with the exception of the UK) in Iraq. And Pakistan, which until recently has been an unhelpful wild card and Taliban sanctuary, seems to now recognize the Taliban as a threat to its own sovereignty.

Two overriding questions are properly informing and influencing the White House in framing an Afghanistan strategy: 1) Is Afghanistan important enough to U.S. and western security interests so as to merit our investment of tens of thousands of additional military people and tens of billions of additional dollars? 2) If so, what's our objective? What constitutes success?

While many of my political soul-mates see Afghanistan as another potential Vietnam and offer well-reasoned alternatives to our continued commitment, it seems clear to me that we have strategic interests for remaining in that region.

Peter Bergen has authored a couple of persuasive pieces recently for The New Republic magazine that document how virtually every terrorist threat to the U.S. and elsewhere has incubated in the terrain along the Afghan-Pakistan border. That's where the training camps are, along with the transportation infrastructure, the supply lines, and other elements required for formidable and sustained terrorist activity. If al Qaeda and its affiliated organizations can be defeated or crippled here, the world will be that much safer. No other sanctuary----not Somalia, Yemen or anywhere else---offers al Qaeda the same level of resources or recruitment, training, propaganda or protection.

Conversely, a re-energized Taliban controlling Afghanistan, while hosting an al Qaeda on a mission to bring down western civilization, gives sustenance and heart to terrorists everywhere.

What constitutes success in this situation? Well, we don't have to convert Afghanistan into a modern nation. In fact, the normalization of life in Afghanistan so people there can live as they have historically lived and develop their nation as they will should be one of our primary goals.

That doesn't require the formation of a strong central government, just one that is less corrupt and more a vehicle for distributing and managing the largess western society is prepared to provide.

Is this possible? That's more of a political than military question. But it's certainly a prerequisite for establishing an Afghanistan ready to stand on its own with the support of a military that knows what it's fighting for.

It wasn't long ago, predating the Russian invasion of 1973, that the Afghans lived quite peacefully as a largely tribal culture, with recognition of Pashtun, Tajik and other historic interests and systems of governance. This is all within the common memory of many Afghans.

To give the Afghans a chance U.S. and its NATO allies will have to contain the military threat posed by Taliban forces. That threat can't be ended village-by-village. It has to be confronted upstream, in the border area where al Qaeda was born and has been nourished. And it can't be done without the active participation of Pakistan. I'll discuss that in my next column.

((Joe Rothstein can be contacted at joe@einnews.com)