If columnist Thomas Friedman's analysis of our involvement in Afghanistan is as insightful as I fear, it ought to give President Obama pause. One of the key lessons that the "best and brightest" among America's foreign policymakers failed to have picked up, despite repeated instances that have underscored its importance, is that a war can only be effectively sold to the American people if it carries with it a logically sound objective and can be said to have succeeded after having reached clear and definable pre-existing goals. When Presidents Roosevelt and Truman successfully led us through World War II, President Truman and Eisenhower through the Korean War, President Ford into Cambodia (to rescue American hostages from the USS Mayaguez), the first President Bush into Iraq (to prevent a hostile takeover of an innocent nation), and President Clinton into Kosovo (to stop the genocide of ethnic Albanians by the Milosevic regime), they had full public support because they set up realistic benchmarks by which to define "success" and made a convincing case to the American people as to why those military efforts were necessary. If Obama is to avoid suffering the fate of those contemporary presidents who are associated with failed wars (Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush being the most important examples), then he must recognize that the only reason we are engaged in military action within the Middle East is because, on September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden orchestrated a terrorist attack that took three thousand lives on American soil. Any military endeavor that does not serve the clear and unmistakable purpose of bringing the main perpetrator of that atrocity, Osama bin Laden, to justice, as well as protect us from future terrorist attacks, is a waste of something far worse than American treasure and international prestige - it is a morally indefensible squandering of American lives.
From Baby-Sitting to Adoption
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
On Aug. 29, this newspaper carried a front-page headline that should make your blood boil: “Karzai Using Rift With U.S. to Gain Favor.” The article said that Obama officials were growing disenchanted with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, whose supporters allegedly stuffed ballot boxes in the recent elections, while Mr. Karzai struck deals with accused drug dealers and warlords, one of whom is his brother, for political gain. The article added, though, that in a feat of political shrewdness, Mr. Karzai “has surprised some in the Obama administration” by turning their anger with him “to an advantage, portraying himself at home as the only political candidate willing to stand up to the dictates of the United States.”
If this is how our “allies” are treating us in Afghanistan, after eight years, then one really has to ask not whether we can afford to lose there but whether we can afford to win there.
It would be one thing if the people we were fighting with and for represented everything the Taliban did not: decency, respect for women’s rights and education, respect for the rule of law and democratic values and rejection of drug-dealing. But they do not. Too many in this Kabul government are just a different kind of bad. This has become a war between light black — Karzai & Co. — and dark black — Taliban Inc. And light black is simply not good enough to ask Americans to pay for with blood or treasure.
This is the most important and troubling fact about Afghanistan today: After eight years of work there, we still do not have a reliable Afghan partner to hand off to. And it is not all our fault. Lord knows, Iraq still has problems. The outcome there remains uncertain. But the reason Iraq still has a chance for a decent future is because a critical mass of Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites were ready to take on their own extremists and hold reasonably fair elections. The surge in Iraq started with key Iraqi communities wanting to liberate themselves from their own radicals. Our troops helped them do that.
The strategy that our new — and impressive — commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is pursuing calls for additional troops to create something that does not now exist there — a reasonably noncorrupt Afghan state that will serve its people and partner with America in keeping Afghanistan free of drug lords, warlords, the Taliban and Al Qaeda. His plan calls for clearing areas of Taliban control, holding those areas and then building effective local, district and provincial governments — along with a bigger army, real courts, police and public services. Because only with all that can we hold the support of the Afghan people and avoid a Taliban victory and a return of Al Qaeda that could threaten us. That is the theory.
And it may, indeed, be the only way to go, but we should have no illusions: We’re talking State Building 101 in the most inhospitable terrain and in one of the poorest, most tribalized, countries in the world.
As the military expert Anthony Cordesman, who has advised the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, explained in The Washington Post recently, it requires “a significant number” of U.S. reinforcements and time to do what the Kabul government has failed to do, because it remains “a grossly overcentralized government that is corrupt, is often a tool of power brokers and narco-traffickers, and lacks basic capacity in virtually every ministry.”
To put it another way, we are not just adding more troops in Afghanistan. We are transforming our mission — from baby-sitting to adoption. We are going from a limited mission focused on baby-sitting Afghanistan — no matter how awful its government — in order to prevent an Al Qaeda return to adopting Afghanistan as our state-building project.
I recently looked back at Stephanie Sinclair’s stunning 2006 photograph in The Times of Ghulam Haider, an 11-year-old Afghan girl seated next to the bearded 40-year-old man she was about to be married off to. The article said Haider had hoped to be a teacher but was forced to quit her classes when she became engaged. The furtive sideways glance of her eyes at her future husband said she was terrified. The article said: “On the day she witnessed the engagement party. ... Sinclair discreetly took the girl aside. ‘What are you feeling today?’ the photographer asked. ‘Nothing,’ the bewildered girl answered. ‘I do not know this man. What am I supposed to feel?’ ”
That is the raw clay for our state-building. It may still be worth doing, but one thing I know for sure, it must be debated anew. This is a much bigger undertaking than we originally signed up for. Before we adopt a new baby — Afghanistan — we need to have a new national discussion about this project: what it will cost, how much time it could take, what U.S. interests make it compelling, and, most of all, who is going to oversee this policy?
I feel a vast and rising ambivalence about this in the American public today, and adopting a baby you are ambivalent about is a prescription for disaster.
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