Return of the Dreaded Table
I want to thank Ross Douthat, first of all, for responding to my critique of his latest column, and I think I understand better what he’s getting at. Now let me see if I can clarify what I am getting at.
The choices Ross presented in his column, and that are usually presented, are between trying to win and just muddling through. The third, usually excluded choice, is: planning for the exit. Ross explicitly excluded that choice by simply saying that the Obama Administration is not considering it and that “the memory of 9/11, which ensures that any American president will be loath to preside over the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul.” But neither of these are arguments for staying – they are arguments for not considering whether we should stay because we simply will. He chose to frame the question that way, and that framing shaped my response.
To grapple with the heart of Ross’s argument, then. Apart from the overarching point that our resources, our responsibilities, and our interests are all limited, the key point that Rory Stewart makes in his article that Ross cites as “admirably honest” is that “[t]here are, in reality, no inescapable connections between Afghanistan and Pakistan, al-Qaeda and the Taliban.” If this is true, then if our goal is overwhelmingly to keep al Qaeda from again regaining its prior position in Afghanistan, to say nothing of Pakistan, then we should not assume that defeating the Taliban and/or keeping them out of power should be a primary war aim. Right now, nearly all the discussion about Afghanistan is predicated on the assumption that the American goal is to keep the Taliban out of power. If, instead, the assumption were that the Taliban, in some form, was inevitably going to return to power – not necessarily to exclusive power, of course – then we’d be having a very different conversation.
The key questions are: what does Pakistan (or the Pakistani army) really want; is it well-aligned with what we want; can they deliver; and can we live with giving them whatever it is they want that doesn’t dovetail with what we want.
My sense is that Pakistan wants a docile Afghanistan dominated by the Pashtun majority that is beholden to Islamabad and, in particular, doesn’t have any meaningful relations with India. Al Qaeda is more a threat to their regime than to us, so I should think if our preeminent war aim is to separate al Qaeda from the Taliban, that our aims are well-aligned in that regard. Whether we can live with Afghanistan being turned into a Pakistani puppet is another question – but it’s a question worth asking.
Whether Pakistan can deliver is another story entirely, but it strikes me as very peculiar indeed to believe simultaneously that the Pakistani army can’t be relied on but that after a decisive effort we could hand the reins over to the Afghan army.
Ross ended his column by saying: “this is what General Petraeus will be fighting for, across the next year and more — not to keep us in forever, but to seize what may be our last chance at getting out.” If by that he meant “make it possible for an orderly entry of the Taliban into government in Kabul with some confidence that al Qaeda won’t be invited in as well” then perhaps we agree more than we disagree on the most important matters. But if by that he meant “enable the Karzai regime to stand on its own” then, well, I just don’t see why he’s more confident in that approach than the “counter-terrorism plus” scenario that he treats as the only alternative.
Finally, I’ll note that we’re now engaged in our 20th year of “commitment” in Iraq. Operation Desert Shield was launched in 1990, Operation Desert Storm in 1991, but our commitment didn’t end then. From the cease-fire through to the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003, we had a significant commitment of troops to the region and enforced a no-fly zone in both the north and the south. America committed itself to a policy of regime change in Iraq in 1998, and launched a new, full-scale war on the country in 2003. One of the justifications of that war was that we needed to finally bring Iraq to a “decisive outcome.” And here we still are. The “muddling through” option in Iraq did indeed trap us – we didn’t “win” and we couldn’t leave and our continued presence was a major contributor to the rise of al Qaeda and to instability in Saudi Arabia. And so we went for a decisive outcome. How’d that work out?
What’s missing from your and Ross’s analysis is looking at our involvement in Afghanistan through the same lens that Matt Frost used so expertly in his TAS post about the TSA, who’s actually at risk, what that risk is, and how that drives policy.
Com’on, Matt. Show NM and RD how it’s done!
— Tony Comstock · Jun 29, 09:27 PM · #
I bet my man Bruce Bueno de Mesquita knows how to analyze the Pakistani Question. Who are the operators, how do they perceive the logic of their political survival, how and how effectively can we impact those perceptions. We the US, guys: rich in carrots and sticks. I’m guessing a grand bargain is in our reach.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jun 30, 03:24 AM · #
Oh, and Tony thinks I’m a bigger pussy than Conor ‘cause I won’t call his ass cold. True story! — I hate the phone.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jun 30, 03:28 AM · #
I love it,Excellent article.I am decide to put this into use one of these days.Thank you for sharing this.To Your Success!
— Baltimore Ravens jerseys · Jun 30, 11:04 AM · #
“make it possible for an orderly entry of the Taliban into government in Kabul with some confidence that al Qaeda won’t be invited in as well”
Noah.
The 800 pound gorilla that you and Douthat are both stubbornly ignoring is that more democracy in MENA doesn’t mean more secularism—it means more Islam. For examples of this tautology see Hamas’ election in Gaza, Turkey’s continuing shift away from an occidentalist Kemalist dictatorship/mil junta towards a representative islamic state, Iraq’s inclusion of shariah law in its constitution, the gathering power of the Muslim Brotherhood as Dictator Mubarak declines and the growth of Pakistani islamic parties post Musharraf.
The Bush Doctrine is basically hideously flawed at a foundational level….“democracy promotion” will simply NEVER lead to stable secular nation states in MENA.
If the goal in Afghanistan is a stable enough quasi-secular government that would allow an american withdrawal….I think that is never going to happen.
So instead make the withdrawal parameters conform to the existance of a stable ISLAMIC state in the Graveyard of Empires. And that means including the Taliban in the government we leave behind.
When the people of MENA can vote, they vote for representative Islamic republics, they vote for Islam.
So to work within the framework of realist pragmatism, and in the interest of eventual American withdrawal, Petraeus needs to talk to the Taliban, not attempt to hunt them down and exterminate them.
bi la kayfah
— matoko_chan · Jun 30, 01:15 PM · #
And yes, Mr. President, sir, rule of law is the goal.
But it will have to be rule of Islamic law, if the people of MENA get to vote on it.
— matoko_chan · Jun 30, 01:24 PM · #
Afghanistan is a central Asian country, and in the long run its future will be decided by the powers of Asia.
China and India will be the great powers in Asia by mid-century, as they have been throughout most of Asia’s history, and they will decide the future of Afghanistan.
From their perspective – the band of smaller countries, from Af-Pak through the Himalayas and on around to Indochina – are all part of the complicated fracture zone between the two great powers of India and China.
And in the long run it will be the place, where the power struggle between India and China will be played out. Once again in all the succeeding millennia as it has been in all the previous ones. For ever and ever. Amen.
Foreign interlopers like the Europeans or the Americans, have no real stake in the region, so they unlikely to have any lasting influence either.
If Westerners choose to piss away the last of their power in the Hindu Kush, then more fool them.
— Keid A · Jun 30, 08:22 PM · #
how do they perceive the logic of their political survival, how and how effectively can we impact those perceptions. We the US,
— Air Jordan 2010 · Jul 1, 09:45 AM · #
and here is the real 800 pound gorilla……..5000 american soljahs died in Iraq because GW was too stupid to realize that when muslims can vote, they vote for Islam.
all those young american troops died for nothing …… and i think when that when that sinks in to the electorate there is going to be hell to pay.
— matoko_chan · Jul 11, 03:03 PM · #