Sunday
Feb082009
Update on Obama v. The Military: Where Next in Afghanistan?
Sunday, February 8, 2009 at 19:20
Is President Obama preparing to stall out the military's request for 25,000 more US troops to Afghanistan?
On its own, that's not strong evidence that Obama is going to block the military's insistence on a "surge" to be announced before the NATO summit on 5 April. However, the excellent Juan Cole stacks up the reasons why Obama might want to pull the plug on Genius/General David Petraeus's plan.
As we've noted for weeks, the US is in a real logistical bind. With the closure of its main supply route from Pakistan, it has to find an alternative for all those extra forces. Russia, however, is playing a double game: while it says publicly it will allow the US to move supplies across its territory, it has encouraged Kyrgyzstan to close the US Manas airbase that is needed for the effort. Meanwhile Uzbekistan, which did host US bases after 9/11 but then evicted American forces in 2005, is only prepared to allow non-military supplies across its supplies.
Conclusion? The US is going to have pay a very high price --- economic and political --- to get full support for an alternative supply route. That is --- and here's a crazy thought --- unless it's prepared to supply Afghanistan from the west via Iran.
But, as good as Cole's analysis is, I think it misses the wider political point. It's pretty clear that Washington would prefer to see the back of President Hamid Karzai, its choice to lead Afghanistan in 2001 but a leader who --- depending on your point of view --- is too tolerant of corruption or too critical of the US approach to be a solid ally in this new surge.
However, unless the US is prepared to abandon the semblance of national government, it needs someone to play the political partner in Kabul. And Karzai, who is getting bolder even as his position is more and more tenuous, has made the process more difficult by suspending elections for the foreseeable future.
That means that, short of a coup, the Obama Administration is encumbered by a national leader who is now an opponent of its plans. And that means that, even if the US can find short-term military success against the insurgents, it has no political "endgame" in sight.
I'm wary of the V-word as an analogy but, for students of history, it might not be a bad idea to revisit Ngo Dinh Diem and Saigon 1963. Let's hope that Barack Obama chooses to take a glance, and draw any suitable lessons, this week.
The Times of London, in an article that is not replicated elsewhere, thinks so. It asserts, on the basis of an unnamed source:
The Pentagon was set to announce the deployment of 17,000 extra soldiers and marines last week but Robert Gates, the defence secretary, postponed the decision after questions from Obama.
The president was concerned by a lack of strategy at his first meeting with Gates and the US joint chiefs of staff last month in “the tank”, the secure conference room in the Pentagon. He asked: “What’s the endgame?” and did not receive a convincing answer.
On its own, that's not strong evidence that Obama is going to block the military's insistence on a "surge" to be announced before the NATO summit on 5 April. However, the excellent Juan Cole stacks up the reasons why Obama might want to pull the plug on Genius/General David Petraeus's plan.
As we've noted for weeks, the US is in a real logistical bind. With the closure of its main supply route from Pakistan, it has to find an alternative for all those extra forces. Russia, however, is playing a double game: while it says publicly it will allow the US to move supplies across its territory, it has encouraged Kyrgyzstan to close the US Manas airbase that is needed for the effort. Meanwhile Uzbekistan, which did host US bases after 9/11 but then evicted American forces in 2005, is only prepared to allow non-military supplies across its supplies.
Conclusion? The US is going to have pay a very high price --- economic and political --- to get full support for an alternative supply route. That is --- and here's a crazy thought --- unless it's prepared to supply Afghanistan from the west via Iran.
But, as good as Cole's analysis is, I think it misses the wider political point. It's pretty clear that Washington would prefer to see the back of President Hamid Karzai, its choice to lead Afghanistan in 2001 but a leader who --- depending on your point of view --- is too tolerant of corruption or too critical of the US approach to be a solid ally in this new surge.
However, unless the US is prepared to abandon the semblance of national government, it needs someone to play the political partner in Kabul. And Karzai, who is getting bolder even as his position is more and more tenuous, has made the process more difficult by suspending elections for the foreseeable future.
That means that, short of a coup, the Obama Administration is encumbered by a national leader who is now an opponent of its plans. And that means that, even if the US can find short-term military success against the insurgents, it has no political "endgame" in sight.
I'm wary of the V-word as an analogy but, for students of history, it might not be a bad idea to revisit Ngo Dinh Diem and Saigon 1963. Let's hope that Barack Obama chooses to take a glance, and draw any suitable lessons, this week.