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Are We Losing Afghanistan?
David Guttenfelder / AP Photo
As the U.S. launches a new surge, the Taliban and al Qaeda are sensing victory in the second-longest war in American history. The Brookings Institution’s Bruce Riedel on what G-8 leaders—and Obama—must do at their summit this week to shift the momentum.
The jihadists smell victory in the war in South Asia. They know support for the Afghan war is dropping across the NATO alliance—war weariness is acute in Canada and Western Europe. At a conference in Venice last week, European experts talked of rising demands for bringing their troops home and polls showing support for the war dropping. In America, the “good war” has lost its luster and many now argue the mission is impossible in the “graveyard of empires.”
Omar and bin Laden calculate that if they can withstand Obama’s offensive this year, rising casualties will fuel frustration with the second longest war in American history.
When the G-8 leaders meet in Italy this month, they need to keep making clear the case for why the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan matters to their domestic constituencies. They must explain clearly and unequivocally what is at stake—why it matters that we not let the global jihad take over these countries and further expand their sanctuaries.
Last winter, while President Barack Obama’s national-security team was reviewing American policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan in Washington, the Taliban's senior leadership was conducting its own strategy review in Quetta, Pakistan. The so-called Quetta Shura, led by Mullah Muhammad Omar, also known as the commander of the faithful, convened for several days in the capital of Baluchistan to prepare for the arrival of thousands of additional American troops in the Taliban heartland of southern Afghanistan. Omar and his commanders anticipated a critical campaign this summer and fall that may determine the outcome of the almost eight-year-old war.
Al Qaeda’s senior commander in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, told Al Jazeera last month that the Taliban and al Qaeda have closely coordinated their strategy for fighting Obama’s offensive since then, including discussions with Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden. Yazid confidently predicted a jihadist victory in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. After that, armed with Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, he said, the jihad would take on America around the world from its base in South Asia.
To underscore their intentions, a Taliban suicide bomber this month struck at a bus belonging to the Khan Research Labs in Rawalpindi, the military capital of Pakistan, and killed six people. KRL is the brainchild of A.Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistani bomb and the world’s most notorious proliferator of nuclear technology. As one Pakistani security official noted, “The attack was alarming because it targeted our prime nuclear facility.”
Omar and bin Laden calculate that if they can withstand Obama’s offensive this year, rising casualties will fuel frustration with the second-longest war in American history and produce more calls to downsize the mission and get our troops home. The Taliban and al Qaeda leadership know the battlefields in Helmand and Kandahar provinces are important but ultimately less important than the struggle inside the Crusaders’ own countries to sustain the war. Just as the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan when the leadership in Moscow lost faith in their war in the 1980s, so the jihadists calculate they only need to outlast America and NATO to win this war.
Washington needs to be clear with Pakistan that the Quetta Shura needs to be shut down permanently. For far too long, Pakistan has tolerated the Afghan Taliban leadership’s presence in Quetta and other parts of Pakistan. Now that Pakistan is finally taking action against its own Pakistani Taliban, it needs to take on Mullah Omar and his Shura council as well. This is not the time for half-measures.
Xtra Insight: The Daily Beast's Michael O'Hanlon: Why Afghanistan Is No Iraq
Bruce Riedel is a senior fellow at the Saban Center in the Brookings Institution. He chaired President Obama’s strategic review of Afghanistan and Pakistan last winter and is author of The Search for al Qaeda.
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The British, driven out of this hostile land twice in the last century, along with the Russian army - might that not offer a clue here?
It is time for a new type of war. The old style of conventional warfare will fail in this region like it has before for Russia and the British. If the G8 is truly committed to victory in Afghanistan it will be time for them to debut some of the more advanced technologies for surveillance and long distance targeting that have been on the drawing board.
Yes indeed Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. In the best of times Kabul never controlled the countryside. We are fools to spend blood and treasure to think otherwise. With radical Islamic government discredited better to let rural Afghans live their backward lives hey appear to want than destroy our financial stability and military capacities in a hopeless war.
Outside of the governments which are attempting to destroy them, do the Taliban terrorize anyone?
Actually, even the most basic instruction in their code, the Pashtunwali, will make it clear that they are both duty bound to take vengeance on anyone who (say) kills one of their women (I didn't say they were modern, did I?), but also to taunt anyone who fails to take vengeance.
Similarly, there are ways to apologize for the senseless aerial bombardment which has killed so many innocent Pashtun.
There are people in America who would destroy all the Muslim regimes in the world, right? We know they exist. Ann Coulter said we should decapitate _all_ their leaders. Not only do we protect Ann Coulter with our laws and military, we give her a national platform on many occasions. How _should_ the normal monarch feel about a person who publicly asks for their execution (the Coulter Fatwa) and is given a national podium (rather than just ignored, as any truly civilized people would do).
I read this article, wrote this, then read Riedel's credentials. It is no surprise that Obama is floundering in Afghanistan.
Josh-Narins:
Pashtunwali is not the code of the Taliban, but rather the ancient tribal law of the Pashtuns, a tribe that inhabits south-western Pakistan and the south eastern part of Afghanistan. The Pashtuns basically have free access to both countries and only go through the most basic security checks as they leave one country and arrive in the other. Pashtunwali has been their recognized and only code of behaviour for centuries.
The Taliban is a separate entity to the Pashtuns. Some Pashtuns may be Taliban, but so can be said for some Pakistanis and some Afghanis. Al Qaeda is comprised of a cultural mosaic and comprises some of the above, plus many from the Middle East.
The Pashtuns are not our enemy; they would rather be left alone to carry on their existence as a thirteenth century tribal community. That is not to say that they wouldn't be involved in the transportation of weapons from one region to another; for centuries, they have considered smuggling a steady and somewhat respectable source of income.
Correction, the Taliban are a subset of the Pashtun.
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18241/no_sign_until_the_ burst_of_fire.html
The Taliban Pashtun aren't True Muslims, either, they are Muslims In Name Only (per the common Republican and Christian meme). I mean to say that many still pray at the old shrines, and tie rocks around their necks (iirc) as part of their ancient superstitions. The shrines represent gods, and they worship them.
Josh-Narins:
As I said, 'Some Pashtuns may be Taliban', in fact Mullah Omar, their leader, is ethnic Pashtun, but the Taliban have grown and now includes other ethnic groups, including Pakistanis and other non-Pashtun Afghanis.
The Taliban's code of ethics is much more severe and much less tolerant than Pashtunwali, on which it was originally based. But, the law of the Taliban is the law of the Taliban; Pashtunwali is the ancient honour code of the Pashtuns and pre-dates Islam-long before the Taliban were created!
Totally bogus assertions. The Taliban's code of ethics is related to Islam, not Pashtunwali at all. Nice "grab at straws in the dark while falling off cliff" attempt, though!
Most all Taliban are Pashtun. Please read the article.
We don't actually know how old Pashtunwali is. The first Pashto documents only date from the 16th century. Other civilizations certainly could have written about their code. It _probably_ predates Islam, but since I don't know of any records of that fact, I have no good reason to presume it does.
Please read the article, apparently you didn't. Unless you have a better source, I'll believe them. They say the Taliban are a subset of the Pashtun, part of a decades old to-and-fro between the Afghanistan (which pushed Pashtun separatism) against Pakistan.
The Taliban's code of ethics is simply different. It is not, in any sense "much more severe." The Pashtunwali penalty for LOOKING at a real Pathan's woman is DEATH. It's not commonly enforced, but it is there.
We don't know, nor ever will know, how old Pashtunwali is. Pashto writings only date from the 16th century. Without evidence that it existed before then, you are just speculating.
Josh-Narins, my good friend. You do seem to be taking this very personally.
I followed the link that you supplied, but noticed early into it that it contained a couple of inaccuracies, so I decided not to read on.
The region that supplies most of the soldiers for the Taliban these days is the North West frontier province, home to Swat and Dir. These recruits are Pakistani recruits, not Pashtun. Washington has conveniently confused this issue.
This para from Eric Margolis, whom I consider to be the pre-eminent expert on this region....."These Pashtun tribes that were attacked are collectively mislabelled "Taliban" in the west. While Pashtun tribesmen, they are not the Afghan Taliban. But it's convenient for western media (read American) and Pentagon to slap this convenient label on them, just as a wide assortment of anti-American groups in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia that have nothing to do with Isama bin Laden are branded "al-Qaida." Now, add Pakistani "Taliban" to Washington's "bad guys" list. "
The residents of Swat and Dir are Pashtun.
D'oh!
You are confused, not Washington.
I never refuted one word of this snippet of Margolis. I said the Taliban were a subset of the Pashtun. Most Pashtun, by the way, are Pakistani. That is not the same as saying the Pashtun are the Taliban.
If you had made one accurate or meaningful statement so far I wouldn't be taking this personally. I am upset at myself to have wasted my time talking to you.
Why are we fighting a war in Afghanistan? How can Obama defend this? When did we get attacked by Afghans? Just because there may be terrorists hiding in the area isn't a reason to go and invade that country. By that logic, why didn't we invade Argentina when all the Nazis hid there? The terrorists move at will; you can't use standard military tactics to defeat them. They are not a standing army wearing uniforms.
Josh-Narins:
"The residents of Swat and Dir are Pashtun. D'oh! You are confused, not Washington."
Now you're just being plain silly, as well as ill-informed.
The peoples of the North West frontier province, home to Swat and Dir, are mainly the Dards, or Dardic people. They don't even look like Pashtun for heaven's sake!
This is not to claim that there may not be any Pashtun in that region, for the Pashtun are quite nomadic for a people who tend to stick together for centuries.
Who is feeding you this information? Perhaps it is a friend or a relative? Perhaps it is just folklore? Whatever it is, it isn't _accurate_. In fact, it is is downright misleading. Sure, there is a Dard population in Swat, but it's not the majority. In fact, the Pashtun/Pathan/Pukhton are, just like I said.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swat,_Pakistan
"The main language of the area is Pakhto. The people of Swat are mainly Pakhtuns"
By the way, I never care what people actually look like. To me, the only issue is whether or not they can communicate with each other via language. Uighur is not even close to Chinese. Tamil is not close to Sinhala. Basque is not close to Spanish. Chechen is not close to Russian. Arabic and Hebrew are pretty close. Dari and Pashto aren't very close (about as far as German and English? Maybe more like French and Spanish). They are both in the greater Iranian group: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moderniranianlanguagesmap.jpg
Are we losing interest?
All of the commentators seem to have lost interest in the main point: Both the Taliban and al Qaida realize that the American pubic will soon lose what little patience it has and start to insist that America withdraw. Then Pakistan will fall. Then, they will have their hands on nuclear weapons. What then?
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