Mr Obama's War: The Spin is...It's Not Afghanistan. It's Pakistan.

Related Post: Pakistan Military, Prime Minister Act Against Zardari

We've found an intriguing article in Time, "The Afghanistan Problem: Can Obama Avoid a Quagmire?", valuable not as much for Joe Klein's analysis as for the inside information fed to him.

The immediate impression is of an Administration effort to build up the urgency of the Afghanistan crisis. So we get a glance at the first, "pretty alarming" meeting on the country, held three days after Obama's Inauguration. Of course, the President "was extremely cool and in control", rather than screaming wildly or crying in the corner, "but some people, especially political aides like Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod who hadn't been briefed on the situation, walked out of that meeting stunned". To sum up, from another participant, "Holy s***."

No spin surprises there, but then we get good stuff. Such as that General David Petraeus, the mastermind heading US Central Command, is pissed off he didn't get his way on policy. Trashing Obama's decision not to accept the recommendations from Petraeus' review, one of the General's acolytes complains about the meetings, "You had people from the Department of Agriculture weighing in. There were too many cooks. The end result was lowest-common-denominator stuff. The usual Petraeus acuity wasn't there."

Obama's people threw the criticism right back at Petraeus, praising instead another study by General Douglas Lute, the Bush Administration's "war czar", which was "very skeptical about the Pakistani army's willingness to fight the Taliban and equally critical of the Karzai government in Afghanistan" They added, however, that the report "didn't provide much detail about what to do next".

So the President has commissioned another review, headed by US envoy Richard Holbrooke and Bruce Riedel, who was his campaign advisor on South Asia and is now outside the Administration in the Brookings Institution.

And here's the stinger. Even though that review isn't due until end of review, its conclusions (or what Obama's officials will spin as its conclusions) are already being leaked:

Afghanistan pales in comparison to the problems in Pakistan. Our primary goal has to be to shut down the al-Qaeda and Taliban safe havens on the Pakistan side of the border. If that can be accomplished, then the insurgency in Afghanistan becomes manageable.

Klein gets a bit fuzzy at this point, primarily because the Administration is still fuzzy on what a Pakistan-first effort means. It can throw in the $1.5 billion/year authorised by Congress, running over five years, in economic aid, but officials are unsure how to distribute the money to have any effect. (It is irrelevant, of course, that Pakistan has a President who was charged/convicted in various countries with corruption.)

So what to do? This paragraph offers the most enlightening, but most disturbing, scenario:

"We have to re-establish close personal relationships with the army," said a senior member of the National Security Council, who was involved in an intense series of meetings with the Pakistani military leadership during the first week of March. "We have to be sure they're on the same page as we are. Based on what I saw, they aren't yet."

So, does this mean that the Pakistani military is kicking up a fuss about the US missile strikes and proposed American strategy in the Northwest Frontier Provinces? Or does this farther, with Washington envisaging a Pakistani military running Islamabad's policy, either behind the scenes or quite openly after toppling President Zardari?

Watch this space.

In response

Pakistan: The Latest on the Lahore Attack on Sri Lankan Cricketers

Pakistani authorities have arrested up to 100 suspects over yesterday's attack that killed seven and wounded several members of the touring Sri Lanka cricket team. None of the 12 gunmen involved in the attack are among those detained.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Breaking News: Sri Lankan Cricketers Attacked in Pakistan

Latest Post: The Latest on the Lahore Attack on Sri Lankan Cricketers

Update (4:40 p.m. GMT): Reuters' latest updates say the death doll from today's attack is now eight- this includes six police, the driver of a van in the players' convoy, and one other. Six players and the coach of the Sri Lankan cricket team are now thought to have been injured.

Meanwhile Sardar Nabil Ahmed Gabol, Pakistan's minister of state for shipping, has blamed India for the attack, calling it a "reaction" to November's Mumbai attacks, "a conspiracy" and "a declaration of open war on Pakistan by India."

As discussed here, what may at first appear to be an odd target for a terrorist attack may have serious repercussions for the region- the International Cricket Council looks likely to prevent international matches being played in Pakistan, and has also raised doubts over the 2011 World Cup, due to be co-hosted by Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Update (12:40 p.m.): Lifting two comments from Josh Mull ("UJ"), drawing on his knowledge of Pakistani politics and society:

Comment 1: If the various factions of Taliban start condemning it, we’ll be able to triangulate the group responsible based on their current relationships with insurgent leaders. If, on the other hand, we see MULTIPLE groups taking credit, then we’re on the trail to jihadists. Insurgents care deeply about their reputation, particularly their credibility and respect among the local population. Jihadis don’t give a s**t. By their calculation, it’s BETTER for us to be confused as to who really did it and how many jihadis are actually out there....

Comment 2: Now we’ve got a bit of an official narrative. It’s almost the same as Mumbai: 1. It’s Terrorists 2. It’s designed to embarrass Pakistan.

But what the narrative is missing is patience. The Pakistani government reacted almost immediately with “this is a plot to humiliate us!” versus the response to Mumbai, which was “hold on everybody, let’s do a thorough investigation to make sure we have all the facts.”

No, this time they knew it wasn’t their own assets, and they knew right away.

I smell jihadis. Now let’s see who takes credit…

Update (11:45 a.m.): CNN has revised the reports of injuries. As reported earlier, batsman Thilan Samaraweera was shot in the thigh but batsmen Tharanga Paranavitana, not assistant coach Paul Farbrace, was shot in the chest. Reports indicate that gunmen initially targeted a police car and two security vehicles in front of the bus, rather than the team vehicle.

Update (8:55 a.m.): Pakistani newspaper Dawn is reporting six policemen and two bystanders killed. Batsman Thilan Samawareera, shot in the thigh, and assistant coach Paul Farbrace, shot in the chest, are in hospital with injuries which are not life-threatening. Captain Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara, Tharanga Paranavithana and Ajantha Mendis suffered minor injuries.

Update (7:55 a.m.): Charlie Austin, agent to six Sri Lankan players, relays their story: wheels of bus were shot out but driver kept bus moving. Attack lasted 2-3 minutes.

Update (7;35 a.m.): Sri Lankan cricketers reported injured - Jayawardene, Sangakkara, Mendis, Paranavitana, Samaraweera. One cricketer shot in thigh, one in chest. Others cut by glass.

Update (7:15 a.m. GMT): The two most seriously wounded cricketers are in "critical but stable" condition.

At least eight Pakistani security personnel have been killed and at least six members of the Sri Lanka cricket team wounded in an attack in Lahore this morning. Two of the cricketers have been shot in the assault on the Sri Lanka bus by about a dozen gunmen. The most seriously wounded is Thilan Samaraweera, who yesterday scored a double century (more than 200 runs) in his innings in the Pakistan-Sri Lanka test match.

Mr Obama's Doctrine: Josh Mull on US Grand Strategy in Pakistan and Beyond

Related Post: Mr Obama's War - Pakistan Insurgency "Unites" (You Heard It Here First)

"The 'Obama Doctrine' looks something like this: the United States will continue to use its military power as its premier tool in international affairs and may even act preemptively. However, it will not  do so on issues it deems outside of reasonable American national security concerns, and it will act only with support and cooperation from the international community. To put it frankly, this is something like a cross between 'walk softly and carry a big stick' and the Buddy System. While still violent, imperial, and aggressive, it is a marked departure from the so-called Bush Doctrine and even the Global War on Terror."

Yesterday Scott Lucas, in “Mr. Obama's War: The Fantasy of the Pakistan Sanctuaries”, analysed US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' appearance on Meet the Press, pointing out the cognitive dissonance in Gates' assertion that the US understands safe havens in Pakistan because it has previously used those same Pakistani safe havens so effectively. Lucas also raises some very interesting questions, particularly over Gates' apparent non-answer to the question of the consequences for Pakistan of the US campaign. This is my attempt to answer those questions, as well as a proposal to parse out a broader US “grand strategy” from Gates' appearance.

Host David Gregory asked Gates on Sunday, “The trouble and consequences of jihadists making significant gains in either Afghanistan or Pakistan is perhaps more acute in Pakistan given its nuclear potential. True?” In reply, Gates' offered this:

Well, as long as we’re in Afghanistan and as long as the Afghan government has the support of dozens and dozens of countries who are providing military support, civilian support in addition to us, we are providing a level of stability in Afghanistan that at least prevents it from being a safe haven from which plots against the United States and the Europeans and others can be, can be put together.

The key is this: Gates isn't answering the question about Pakistan to David Gregory. He's answering the question about Pakistan directly to the Pakistanis.

I decoded Gates' reply as: "Well, as long as I can go on a Sunday morning Prime Time talk show and say 9/11, Taliban, and Osama bin Laden and as long as my Commander-in-Chief can draw crowds of 200,000 screaming Europeans, Pakistan can suck it up and deal with whatever we want to do, including destabilizing or overthrowing their corrupt government and/or stealing or destroying their illegal nuclear weapons, which by the way, I already have the authority to do from a little thing called the Lugar-Obama bill to secure weapons of mass destruction."

In short, it's not the responsibility of the Secretary of Defense to keep Pakistan stable, it is his responsibility to attack extremist safe havens in Pakistan in order to prevent a catastrophic terrorist attack against the US, Canada, or the European Union. President Obama, and by extension the plans of his Secretary of Defense, enjoys bipartisan political support as well as stable international credibility. Accordingly the US will act, as Lucas said in his article, as if “there are no consequences whatsoever for the internal Pakistani situation" or, more appropriately, without regard to these consequences.

But there is more we can glean from Secretary Gates' interview than it appears. Beyond the purposes Lucas pointed out --- pitching Obama's Iraq withdrawal plan and articulating US Afghanistan policy --- it's possible Gates was offering us, and the international audience, insight into the broader strategic calculations of the United States, particularly the role of the Department of Defense and US military power abroad.

President Obama has shown himself to be somewhat of a Centrist, if only in regard to his desire to hear from all sides of an argument or debate. One thing all foreign policy and national security analysts, from the Conservative "Fall of Rome" crowd to the Realist "Second World" types all the way to the Neoconservative "Team America" folks, can agree on is this: the United States of America is now and will continue to be Earth's preeminent military force, at least for the foreseeable future.

There is a saying amongst foreign policy elites:  "Who has the world's largest air force after the US Air Force? The US Army."

With Pakistan, Gates is essentially saying that, as long as the US, Canada, and Europe are threatened by extremist attacks from Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US will continue to act aggressively with its military force. It will do so in any manner and on any territory of its choosing, provided it has the support and cooperation of Europe and NATO (whose members will suffer from terrorism long before the US).

What's absent is any mention of India, which implies the support of India in Afghanistan and protection from Pakistan-launched, "Mumbai-style" attacks are not part of the US calculation. ("Your problem, not ours.")

It may seem like Gates casually forgot to mention India and Mumbai in his response on Pakistan. After all, "AfPak" is an extremely complicated subject, and it's easy to leave things out or get things mixed up. At least, that will be the talking point if this becomes an issue. However, we know two things: first, India and Pakistan are inextricably linked together in any strategic calculus, and second, that this wasn't just a casual visit to Meet the Press by Bob Gates. It was the public coming-out ceremony for George W. Bush's former and now President Obama's current Secretary of Defense, civilian leader of the United States Military.

The importance of this public appearance can't be understated. It was not necessarily designed for the domestic audience of NBC viewers, but rather was aimed at a more global audience and, directly, to the Pakistanis. This is what makes the apparently deliberate absence of India from the “AfPak” equation so significant. The absence, the answer, and the entire interview together could lead us to presume that Gates is articulating the prototype for what will later be called “the Obama Doctrine”.

The “Obama Doctrine” looks something like this: the United States will continue to use its military power as its premier tool in international affairs and may even act preemptively. However, it will not  do so on issues it deems outside of reasonable American national security concerns, and it will act only with support and cooperation from the international community. To put it frankly, this is something like a cross between “walk softly and carry a big stick” and the Buddy System. While still violent, imperial, and aggressive, it is a marked departure from the so-called Bush Doctrine and even the Global War on Terror.

The India-Pakistan and Kashmir and Bangladesh) conflict is the perfect illustration. Under the old rules of the Bush Doctrine, the response to something like the Mumbai attacks might be airstrikes, special forces, or some other combination of clandestine military force. Under the “Obama Doctrine”, the Defense Department under Gates, and thus the US military, are not responsible for the India-Pakistan conflict. Rather this would fall under the portfolios of US Attorney General Eric Holder and his FBI as well US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her cadres of ambassadors and envoys,with support and cooperation from that throbbing heart of diplomacy in Brussels (the European Union), law enforcement agents with Interpol and NATO, and the mediation and oversight of the United Nations.

Obviously it's an extreme departure from George W Bush's radical Napoleonic-cum-Bolshevik strategy of the Global War on Terror, but that doesn't necessarily mean the “Obama Doctrine” will turn out any more successfully than the Bush Doctrine. In fact, the strategy is brimming with vulnerabilities.

The US may be the most powerful military, it is not the only military on the planet. In the fall of 2007 as civil unrest was broiling in Pakistan under General Pervez Musharraf, then-Senator now Vice President Joe Biden campaigned in the Democratic Party primaries on a promise to pull strategic military aid from Pakistan, that is weapons used against India, to pressure Pakistan to focus on the insurgency rather than more ethereal, strategic conflicts. In response, however, the Chinese offered to sell Pakistan a new fleet of MiG fighter jets, similar to the American planes Biden was threatening to withdraw. Now, as then, there is a constant danger that any diplomatic “sticks” threatened by the US can simply be neutralized by other international actors willing to take its place.

Furthermore there is the problem caused by the global financial meltdown and the massive economic depressions it is causing. While Secretary Gates may have it in his authority to bomb Pakistani safe havens as well as police the Straits of Malacca, the United States may not ultimately be able to afford the high price of imperialism. And if the US is forced to cut back on its imperalist designs, it will create some extremely uncomfortable strategic questions for policy makers. For example, what is the higher priority between preventing a bus bombing in London or preventing a missile exchange between Korea and Japan when you can't afford both?

So we don't end on such a morbid tone, let me point out that this prototypical “Obama Doctrine” has some very powerful advantages over the Bush Doctrine, the Global War on Terror, and the so-called Long War/Great Game theories. The most important advantage is that it is absolutely conscious of and constructed on the idea of a “Multi-Polar” world. Even though the US seeks to dominate international affairs, it acknowledges and plans for the participation of other actors, states, or non-states. By allowing for participation, it allows for competition, and as President Obama displays with his choice of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State, competition has both winners and losers who can still join together for a common purpose. There is no absolute victory or defeat of good and evil, but rather a competition among partners.

Mr Obama's War: Pakistan Insurgency "Unites" (You Heard It Here First)

Related Post: Mr Obama’s Doctrine - Josh Mull on US Grand Strategy in Pakistan and Beyond

Enduring America, 23 February: "The Asia Times reports, in the aftermath of the local cease-fire between the Pakistani Governments and groups in the Northwest Frontier Provice, 'A mujahideen shura (Shura Ittehad al-Mujahideen) council was formed this weekend due to the personal efforts of Sirajuddin Haqqani.'"

The Guardian, 3 March: "Three rival Pakistani Taliban groups have agreed to form a united front against international forces in Afghanistan in a move likely to intensify the insurgency just as thousands of extra US soldiers begin pouring into the country as part of Barack Obama's surge plan. The Guardian has learned that three of the most powerful warlords in the region have settled their differences and come together under a grouping calling itself Shura Ittihad-ul-Mujahideen, or Council of United Holy Warriors."

The Guardian may be getting to the story a bit late but at least, unlike most media in the "West", it has noted a significant development.

And, to give reporter Saeed Shah further credit, the article picks up on the equally important "other half" of the story: "The unity among the militants comes after a call by Mullah Omar, the cleric who leads the Afghan Taliban, telling Pakistani militants to stop fighting at home in order to join the battle to 'liberate Afghanistan from the occupation forces'."

No doubt Josh Mull, who has posted essential blogs for Enduring America on the Pakistani insurgency, can go a bit further than the simple call-and-response narrative. As he has noted, the "Taliban" is now a coalition of forces, some of whom have moved beyond Mullah Omar, and Pakistani local insurgents have their own motives for offering to hold fire at home and fighting abroad.

Still the essential question is now put: are the manoeuvres between the insurgent groups and the Pakistani Government for cease-fires and local deals going to free up these forces to wage an even more intense campaign against the US and its "Obama Doctrine" not just in Pakistan but across the border?