Obama, Afghanistan, and Pakistan

Correction from the last email: Gen. Petraeus replaced Gen. Casey, not Franks (who retired after leading the 2003 invasion of Iraq but never finding the slam-dunk WMDs).

AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95783493
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7616005.stm
http://www.newsweek.com/id/163349

"We have a sound bite about a representative Afghanistan at peace with itself and its neighbors," says [retired Marine and defense analyst Nate] Fick. "But we don't have a defined strategic objective."

Fick says there's no agreement among allies, even within the American government, about the road ahead. Is this all just to defeat insurgents or to build a new country? Those efforts, some say, could take 25 years.

"If this is a counterinsurgency effort, maybe we shouldn't be sending more brigades, maybe we should be withdrawing brigades," says Fick. "If this is a holistic state-building effort, then the number is not two or three [brigades], maybe it's much higher than that. Certainly tens of thousands of troops, if not over 100,000 troops," he says. -NPR
Harsh and remote Afghanistan is one of the five poorest nations on Earth, and would be a monumental nation-building effort even with total calm on the streets and no historical baggage. In many ways, Afghanistan poses a much larger challenge than Iraq, and may not be anything more than a failed state now even if we didn't "take our eyes off the ball" with Iraq. More US troops have died there this year than in Iraq, for the first time in the War on Terror. Insurgent bombings are getting more sophisticated, and attacks are up 40%. Militants raided a jail and sprung 886 of their comrades in broad daylight. During the worst times, NATO troops died at a 30/month and civilians at 300/month. A Mideast commentator half joked that corrupt, ineffective President Karzai's political control is limited to downtown Kabul, and only during the daytime. As typical military "solution" to counter this slide, NATO has increased bombing missions three-fold, sometimes killing innocents and generating anger from Afghans and foreign humanitarian groups (many of whom have had to abandon their vital projects in Afghanistan due to unsafe working conditions).

With an infusion of about 10,000 more US soldiers next year, the combined UN ISAF force and Afghan military will total about 250,000. But unfortunately, that may not be enough. Afghanistan is larger than Iraq with more difficult terrain and poorer infrastructure. Their population is also larger (32M), and Gen. Petraeus' counter-terrorism manual prescribes a fighting force of 400,000 to properly secure such a population - which is obviously unfeasible. Some in the Pentagon suggest bribing and arming the tribes could help, as Petraeus did with the Anbar Sunnis, but they fear it will contribute to warlord-ism (a cultural blight and historical trend that still affects them). But they do want them to be more involved and proactive with security and community building, in order to accomplish things that our bombs can't.

While it is clear that an influx of skilled foreign fighters has contributed to the strengthened insurgency and NATO losses, their origins are not fully known. Some are coming from Pakistan obviously, but Afghanistan's border is vast and porous on all sides. It's frankly impossible to control, and Alexander the Great, the Khans, British, and Soviets have tried unsuccessfully. Maybe at best we can fly daily patrols like the no-fly zone in Iraq during the 1990s, or mine the border (but that is politically toxic and causes much collateral damage). Some Pakistanis say the contributions from their nation have been exaggerated by Americans for political scapegoating, and in fact it is the destabilizing NATO war in Afghanistan that is spilling over and exacerbating problems in Pakistan. Yes they have had to deal with religious fundamentalism and lawlessness in the Pashtun tribal regions for decades, but mostly the threat was contained and their urban centers weren't getting bombed. But only after 2001 has there been overt confrontation between anti-government/anti-Western militants and the Pakistani military (at the behest of the US, putting pressure on Gen. Pervez Musharraf to take the gloves off), which has probably done more harm than good. Islamabad is screwed either way. When they launch offensives into the tribal zones, many die on both sides and there is public disapproval. And when insurgents strike back by viciously bombing security forces or even civilian targets, many Pakistanis blame their government and the US for provoking the militants.

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"Essentially, we are starting a fight that we can't finish," [former Pakistan CIA station chief Bob] Grenier says. "Because we are generating far more radicalism, we are motivating more people to fight against us and to fight against the Pakistani government." -NPR

So another concern is Obama's ignorance and shaky dialog on the subject of Pakistan. I know the least about Pakistan too, versus the other nations mentioned in the last email, which probably contributes to my heightened fear of the security situation there. If you don't understand it, then how can you solve it? Maybe you just rely on your advisers at your own risk (but we should remember that there are some Karl Roves and ideologues on the Dem side too). I believe that Pakistan is a major front in the War on Terror, yet on Obama's foreign policy page of his website, there is not a single mention of Pakistan anywhere. I don't expect Obama-Biden to "fix" Pakistan/Afghanistan or even make it a top priority, but at least don't make it worse or continue Bush's counter-productive meddling. The situation is fraught with challenges and experts are exasperated as well. There are some good ideas circulating, and most people agree that we need to devote more resources (though our pocketbook is already strained from Iraq and Wall Street). But even so it's worrisome that the fragile and discordant UN/NATO/Afghan coalition may not execute them to meaningful success.

A positive step was a Biden-Lugar bill that proposed $7.5B over 5 years in development aid for Pakistan, with the caveat that their military does not interfere with civilian governance (call it the "democracy-for-food bill"). This safeguard is not paranoid either, because actually the danger of another military coup is much more likely, and almost as scary, as an Islamist takeover. After all, that's what got Musharraf into power. The Pakistani military establishment is like their fourth estate, and although they've lost some public support recently and had a purging of their security services, they are still a vital component of that nation's identity. Whether patriotic or power-hungry, I am sure the brass would want to step in should the struggling democracy be unable to improve conditions.

We know that Pakistan, the world's second-largest Muslim nation, has vacillated from civilian to military rule and back again during its tumultuous 61-year history after the British left. They lost Bangladesh to succession and have somewhat been at war with India for decades over the disputed Kashmir region, so obviously nationalism, survival, and territory are always on their minds. Dictator Musharraf, a top Bush ally in the War on Terror, took power in a coup in the 1999 and was recently impeached. Not only did his violations of the constitution and sacking of judges do him in, but he failed to fully deliver on promises of modernizing the economy and increasing security. The economy did grow at 6% under Musharraf, which was probably the main reason he lasted this long. Sensing the inevitable, the US called for Musharraf to respect democracy, and threw their hat behind former corruption exile but populist democratic hero Benazir Bhutto. She talked tough about terrorism, made a triumphant return to her homeland amidst death threats, but a final attack did her in. Musharraf's party got the boot in recent parliamentary elections, so now a fragile coalition government has been struck between Bhutto's also corrupt husband, President Zadari (a political novice who also suffers from dementia and PTSD, I'm not even kidding), and Prime Minister Sharif, the man Musharraf unseated and banished.

As if this shaky situation wasn't already a recipe from problems, Pakistan has been terribly affected by the global economic slow-down, with 12%+ inflation and power shortages at near record highs (making their rupee hit an all-time low vs. the dollar). Credit raters have skewered them, and foreign investors are withdrawing their money like it was going out of style. Of course another major reason for their loss of business is the violence. After Musharraf laid siege to the Red Mosque in Islamabad last year, anti-government Islamist insurgent activity ballooned. Modern, educated Pakistanis may not approve of the insurgents' brutal tactics and strict interpretations of Islam, but they distrust or loathe their government even more. They don't want their leaders and military to be puppets of the West and their controversial War on Terror, which in their part of the world resembles a war against Islam for oil. Recently there was an attempt on Zadari's life, and a massive truck bomb destroyed the Marriott hotel in the capital. Over 4,000 Pakistanis have died from fighting this year.

And to make matters worse, the US has intensified its covert military operations within Pakistan. I know our special forces have probably conducted habitual cross-border activities in the tribal areas since 2002 (probably with tacit consent from Islamabad), but frustrated from ISAF's recent setbacks in Afghanistan, our attacks are now more brazen. Predator drones launch missile strikes on Pakistani soil weekly, sometimes killing civilians. And soon the more heavily-armed Reaper drone from Iraq will see action in this theater. The US initially denied it, but Pakistan tracked US helicopters entering Pakistan and unloading commandos who attacked a village, killing some high-value targets but also up to 20 innocents. And more recently, a Pakistani outpost and US gunships exchanged fire at the border but no one was hurt (are we still allies?).

The Pakistani people are outraged by our unapologetic incursions into their country, which makes it harder and harder for the government to justify it's strong allegiance to Washington and targeting of insurgents, who are fellow Muslims and Pakistanis. Trying to deflect blame, pro-American Zadari condemned our actions and called an emergency meeting of his parliament to discuss. Recent negotiations between our two nations over the war have gone nowhere. Though some skeptics believe that America forced Pakistan's hand, stepping up cross-border operations recently to prevent the Zadari government from signing new deals with the tribes. Well, we've done worse in the past.

Like our partnership with Israel, it boils down to incongruent security priorities. Obama criticized Musharraf for signing treaties with the Taleban, but what choice did he have? Unlike us, Pakistan's national objective is not to wipe out Al Qaeda types, but to contain them. Musharraf has broken promises to step down as president and hold elections, so clearly his top goal was just to retain power. Why would he risk his throne and commit political suicide by declaring war on the tribal areas? Pakistan's tribal belt will never come under Islamabad's authority no matter what, but that doesn't mean we have to regard it as the epicenter of a terrorist caliphate that threatens all of Western civilization. While fundamentalists do pose some real problems, cracking down on them may be more costly than tolerating them in a marginal sense. When they are confined to the mountains or maybe going to Afghanistan to fight, they are not really Pakistan's problem anymore. But our fighting in Afghanistan is politically destabilizing and increases anti-Americanism, which does become Pakistan's problem as neighbor and ally. So we're not letting them off the hook that easily. If at first they don't go along with us, American persuasion means leaving the other side no choice.

I know the border is indistinct and weakly respected out there, and war can be very confusing, but we should know better. A similar thing happened during the Vietnam War. The communist North was funneling arms and troops through neutral Cambodia to the conflict zones in the South. Nixon of course concluded that Cambodia was part of the problem, and ordered covert bombing to disrupt communist supply lines. Whether it worked is unclear (America still lost), but the attacks did displace and kill 100,000s of Khmers (also from starvation due to crop destruction) and totally destabilize Cambodia, allowing the insurgent Khmer Rouge to gain more popular support and enact a reign of terror.

Probably our attacks won't cause Al Qaeda extremists to take over Pakistan and launch nukes (the typical Western doomsday scenario). But a more likely, and equally problematic, result could be the military establishment sacking the democratic government, claiming that they will stand up to America and defend Pakistani sovereignty where the cowardly bureaucrats have failed. The military has lost prestige due to Musharraf and the unpopular conflict with insurgents, but they could make their case if the US continues to inadvertently undermine that fragile democracy, and Zadari's government is unable to stop Pakistan's deteriorating economy and security. With Islamist and American bombs going off all around them, and their homes without food/power, the rattled people might turn to the generals as last resort. This time, lawyer protests won't be able to save their "experiment in democracy". Like Myanmar, political moderates and suffering people can't stand up to a powerful junta.

Their nukes would still be relatively secure, but we would set back democratic reforms in the region and turn a key ally into a more isolated, nationalistic, anti-American state (complicating matters for vital neighbors like India too). Even if their democracy is able to persist, at best we will lose much goodwill and cooperation - what little we have left. That would make the War on Terror much harder to maintain, bringing Pakistan closer to rivals like China, and giving a boost to our enemies in Central Asia. Bottom line, it's a bigger problem to lose Pakistan than tolerate some Taleban and Al Qaeda causing problems in Afghanistan but mostly confined to the mountains. Let's remember the consequences of our disrespect: Sudan had Osama in the 1990s, but feeling snubbed by the Clinton administration, they let him go. We have so few friends left in the Muslim world, let's not lose another (that also happens to have nukes).

Millions of Pakistanis live under or among warlords, terrorists, and the Taleban in the ethnic Pashtun Northwest tribal areas (rugged, remote, and about the size of New Jersey) because they have no alternative - that is their ancestral homeland and there is little to no government presence there. Some actually respect the Taleban for meeting basic community needs and enforcing Sharia law. And like the Randy Weaver-type independent survivalists in rural America, they don't consider themselves under Islamabad's rule and form their own militias - sometimes in opposition to the Taleban, but more often against the Pakistani military. I know Pakistan has stolen or pissed away billions in aid money, but we have to find a way to get more basic services to, and a nonthreatening federal presence in, the "ungoverned areas". Maybe they don't want or have to live like Ozzie and Harriet, but at least they should feel connected to their fellow Pakistanis and aware of their unique role in regional affairs. The Taleban can't be the only show in town; they at least deserve an alternative to isolation.

Americans may never understand tribalism and sectarian societies, because our way of life is so different. Autocratic leaders like Musharraf have to rule by force and delicately balance competing factions, constantly wary of coups and assassins. It's even harder for a democratically elected coalition government. So it's not as simple as some politicians claim. It's not like Pakistan's generals are relaxing by the pool, thumbing their nose at America, while Osama is strolling around with impunity. Muslim nations understand the Islamic terrorist threat and how to address it more than we ever will. So if they're not hitting Al Qaeda as hard as we would like, there is good reason for it. It's imperialistic arrogance for us to always assume that we know how to run their country better. Maybe we can sit down with them and discuss how we can help each other get more of what we want, but going after Qaeda "for them", on their soil, is the wrong move.

While it is true that some anti-Western or insurgent-sympathetic elements of the Pakistani security forces are working against us to help the Islamists, no ally is perfect. Remember that we came to them for help, not the other way around. We get what we pay for. Maybe Pakistan isn't a very trustworthy partner in the War on Terror, so we should meter our expectations, exposure, and at least not turn their populace against us. Though let's remember that killing Osama is not the solution to all our problems, especially if doing so creates five more Osamas to fill the void. We have foolishly made Osama the convenient "face" of terrorism to absorb all our fear/hatred, but the foe we fight is so dangerous and elusive precisely because he has no face, or could be any face. Killing a top leader does some damage, but the decentralized, semi-autonomous network of worldwide terror cells will continue their plotting and attacking. And although we've made it much harder for terrorists to wire money, after 7 years they also don't seem to be running out of funding and arms over there (opium sales and smuggling, plus a glut of Cold War era weaponry circulating unchecked in Central Asia).

America's attacks within Pakistan provide little strategic gain, at the huge costs of enraging the population and making violent extremism a more attractive response. Have we learned nothing from our other war? The mighty US military couldn't stamp out Al Qaeda in Iraq, until a few Sunni sheikhs finally got fed up with Qaeda's brutality and allied themselves with us (also for leverage against the Shia of course). All the bombing in the world won't stop the Taleban as long as the Pakistanis support or tolerate them, and in fact our attacks make it much harder for the Pakistani government to contain insurgents and persuade people to reject them. Pakistan is a conservative religious society (and very much so in the tribal regions), so already they are predisposed to distrust the decadent, depraved West and side with fellow Muslims, maybe believing that their violent struggle to "defend the faith" is justified as Jihad. Though of course some moderate Pakistanis are appalled by the carnage from the city bombings and attacks on their military. But they hesitate to support a government that appears powerless to stop warmongering Americans from killing Pakistanis too. We have to give them a reason to side with us, but so far we've just done the opposite.

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Here was Obama's Pakistan Q&A from the second presidential debate:

Hamm: Should the United States respect Pakistani sovereignty and not pursue al Qaeda terrorists who maintain bases there, or should we ignore their borders and pursue our enemies like we did in Cambodia during the Vietnam War?

Obama: Katie, it's a terrific question and we have a difficult situation in Pakistan. I believe that part of the reason we have a difficult situation is because we made a bad judgment going into Iraq in the first place when we hadn't finished the job of hunting down bin Laden and crushing al Qaeda.

So what happened was we got distracted, we diverted resources, and ultimately bin Laden escaped, set up base camps in the mountains of Pakistan in the northwest provinces there.

They are now raiding our troops in Afghanistan, destabilizing the situation. They're stronger now than at any time since 2001. And that's why I think it's so important for us to reverse course, because that's the central front on terrorism.

They are plotting to kill Americans right now. As Secretary Gates, the defense secretary, said, the war against terrorism began in that region and that's where it will end. So part of the reason I think it's so important for us to end the war in Iraq is to be able to get more troops into Afghanistan, put more pressure on the Afghan government to do what it needs to do, eliminate some of the drug trafficking that's funding terrorism.

But I do believe that we have to change our policies with Pakistan. We can't coddle, as we did, a dictator, give him billions of dollars and then he's making peace treaties with the Taliban and militants.

What I've said is we're going to encourage democracy in Pakistan, expand our nonmilitary aid to Pakistan so that they have more of a stake in working with us, but insisting that they go after these militants.

And if we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden; we will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.
From that exchange, it's clear that Obama doesn't get it. Even if we didn't take our "eyes off the ball" with Iraq, I seriously doubt that we could have achieved "victory" in Afghanistan by now. Surely Iraq really hurt our cause, but it's not the catch-all blame-all that Obama tries to make it on the campaign trail. How will Obama exactly "put more pressure" on the Afghan government to get things done? In many ways, the Iraqi government is more functional, and Baghdad has had decades more experience in federal rule (albeit dictatorial).

I do agree that the drug trade has to be seriously addressed, and not like Plan Colombia. Maybe we should use our bombs on the poppy fields instead, but bombs alone won't fix it. We have to give the poor farmers a viable alternative, since opium yields them over 10X more profit than other crops. Plus the Taleban forces them to grow the poppies at gunpoint, so unless we can protect the rural population, we can't stop the drug trade.

We weren't "coddling" Musharraf. We coddle Karzai actually. We were bribing Musharraf for sure, but also putting tremendous heat on him to fight the War on Terror for us, even if he dragged his feet at times. We did tolerate his desecration of democracy, but we also got a lot chummier with India during the Bush years. Pakistan wanted a similar civilian nuclear deal, but of course we declined. Yet Obama seeks to continue Bush's unsound policy - pressure Pakistan to go after militants, even if it is offensive and destabilizing. Obama correctly concludes that we are an inflammatory presence in Iraq and our bad conduct is an affront to Muslim sensibilities, which attracts fighters of many backgrounds with many reasons to oppose us. Knowing that, he can't be a hypocrite on Pakistan and Afghanistan. While the current Afghan regime can't survive without Western support, maybe the less our presence is visible in Pakistan the better, at least until things cool down and Zadari earns more credibility. Cross-border raids, even to "take out Osama", don't help that cause. Unless our brutal counter-terrorism operations show direct and significant benefits to the Afghan and Pakistani people (so far not really), then no one will back us being there.

Maybe by now it is too late, as the Islamists have declared all-out war on the "traitor Pakistani government and its infidel US sponsor". Their fragile government is now hunkered down in Islamabad, prisoners in their own nation, like the Iraqi Green Zone. Is that progress? It's party out fault. We have forced Pakistan's hand to become more like us, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. We all raised the stakes by engaging in preemptive warfare, are all now locked in a fight for survival against the terrorists. That changes the nature of the game tremendously, and things could get uglier.