Setback in Afghanistan
The right response is not a retreat.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/02/AR2009090203083.html

LAST MONTH we expected that Afghanistan's elections would mark a modest step forward for the country. Now it appears that they could be a major reverse. Though the election campaign was positive in many respects, Election Day itself is emerging as a disaster of relatively low turnout and massive irregularities -- including ballot-box-stuffing on behalf of both incumbent President Hamid Karzai and his leading opponent. Unless the fraud can be reversed or repaired through a U.N.-backed complaints commission or a runoff vote, Mr. Karzai may emerge as a crippled winner, his already weak and corruption-plagued administration facing further discredit or even violent protests.

This grim prospect is particularly worrisome because the United States and its allies were counting on the election to provide the Afghan government with a new lease on public support. They hoped the vote would be followed by a drive to reform both national and local administrations and extend their authority to areas where only the Taliban has been present. That construction of government capacity -- call it nation-building if you like -- is essential to the counterinsurgency strategy adopted by U.S. commanders during the last year and embraced by President Obama in March.

Unfortunately for the Obama administration, the bad election news has arrived at the same time as a report by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, that portrays a "serious" military situation in which Taliban fighters are growing more capable and Afghan and international forces lack the military and civilian resources they need to regain the initiative. Gen. McChrystal is expected to ask Mr. Obama to dispatch more American troops next year -- perhaps tens of thousands of reinforcements to the 68,000 U.S. troops already deployed or on the way. The bad election and heavier U.S. casualties this summer, including more than 100 deaths, mean that Mr. Obama will probably come under considerable pressure to deny the additional troops and change course.

The Democratic left and some conservatives have begun to argue that the Afghan war is unwinnable and that U.S. interests can be secured by a much smaller military campaign directed at preventing al-Qaeda from regaining a foothold in the country. Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) has proposed a timetable for withdrawal -- the same demand the left rallied around when the war in Iraq was going badly. Its most cogent argument is a negative one: that the weakness of the Afghan government and the general backwardness of the country mean that the counterinsurgency strategy, with its emphasis on political and economic development, can't work.

That might prove true. But the problem with the critics' argument is that, while the strategy they oppose has yet to be tried, the alternatives they suggest already have been -- and they led to failure in both Afghanistan and Iraq. For years, U.S. commanders in both countries focused on killing insurgents and minimizing the numbers and exposure of U.S. troops rather than pacifying the country. The result was that violence in both countries steadily grew, until a counterinsurgency strategy was applied to Iraq in 2007. As for limiting U.S. intervention in Afghanistan to attacks by drones and Special Forces units, that was the strategy of the 1990s, which, as chronicled by the Sept. 11 commission, paved the way for al-Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington. Given that the Taliban and al-Qaeda now also aim to overturn the government of nuclear-armed Pakistan, the risks of a U.S. withdrawal far exceed those of continuing to fight the war -- even were the result to be continued stalemate.

Yet if Mr. Obama provides adequate military and civilian resources, there's a reasonable chance the counterinsurgency approach will yield something better than stalemate, as it did in Iraq. The Taliban insurgency is not comparable to those that earlier fought the Soviets and the British in Afghanistan. Surveys show that support for its rule is tiny, even in its southern base. Not everything in Mr. Karzai's government is rotten: U.S. officials have reliable allies in some key ministries and provincial governorships, and the training of the Afghan army -- accelerated only recently -- is going relatively well. Stabilizing the country will require many years of patient effort and the pain of continued American casualties. Yet the consequences of any other option are likely to be far more dangerous for this country.


The Afghanistan Panic
We can still win a counterinsurgency, but not on the cheap
Max Boot
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204731804574388483528948634.html

Opposition to the war is rising, even in the President's own party and even before his new military strategy has been fully implemented. Our ally's leaders look weak and corrupt, Americans are increasingly opposed to the war, and prominent politicians and columnists are saying it is time to leave and redeploy our forces to focus on the real danger to the U.S., which is from al Qaeda.

Sound familiar? That was roughly the state of play regarding Iraq in September 2007, even as General David Petraeus's troop surge and counterinsurgency strategy were beginning to work in Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle. Despite a few shaky moments, President Bush stuck with it, and a looming U.S. defeat became a victory.

We are now approaching a similar pass in Afghanistan, amid rising doubts about the wisdom of continuing that war nearly eight years after 9/11. Evidence that President Hamid Karzai's allies stuffed ballot boxes have tarnished the recent Afghan election, U.S. casualties are rising, and the Taliban enemy seems increasingly menacing. Though new theater commander Stanley McChrystal has only recently submitted his strategic plan, the calls are growing for the U.S. to leave. We are about to see if our current Commander in Chief has the nerve of his predecessor to withstand a Washington panic.

The great irony of this panic is that only months ago the consensus was that Afghanistan was a "war of necessity," as President Obama likes to put it. Even the left seemed to agree that Afghanistan couldn't again become a sanctuary for al Qaeda, that retreat from Afghanistan would be a strategic victory for jihadists, and that it would weaken our influence in Islamabad and perhaps threaten the stability of Pakistan itself as Islamists tried to turn the Pakistan military and population its way.

Now we're told we can accomplish these same strategic goals merely by maintaining a much smaller force than the 68,000 currently committed to Afghanistan. Drones and special forces based offshore can contain the jihadists, while the Kabul government will have to fend for itself. We thus don't need to "nation build" to achieve U.S. ends.

This sounds appealing as a way to ease our military burden, but isn't this also more or less what we've already been doing in Afghanistan? Until Mr. Obama's recent increase in troops, the U.S. and NATO have provided only the lightest of Afghan footprints, depending on air power and strike teams to hit the Taliban. It was precisely these stand-off attacks that raised concerns about civilian casualties and allowed the Taliban to return to dominate territory after our troops had cleared it and departed.

The Afghan army will eventually have to do most of the fighting, but for now it remains too small at 173,000 army and police to do so. If the U.S. were to depart, the Taliban would soon control at least the southern and eastern parts of the country. Kandahar would probably fall, too. Al Qaeda could re-establish itself in this territory, as opposed to being confined as it is now to the mountainous border regions. If Generals McChrystal and Petraeus believe they can successfully defeat al Qaeda in such a vast area from offshore, they should say so. But we haven't heard that so far.

A U.S. withdrawal would also complicate Pakistan's anti-jihadist task, undermining the progress of recent months. The Pakistan military has long believed the U.S. to be an unreliable ally, flooding them with cash and ultimatums in a crisis, only to leave or lose interest when the threat recedes or the going gets tough. Would Pakistan's military, in particular, stay on offense against the Taliban in Waziristan if its officers see the U.S. walking away next door? More likely, they will reach their own accommodation with the Taliban, as they did during the 1990s. This, too, would only help al Qaeda.

We haven't seen General McChrystal's new strategy, but by all accounts it is rooted in winning the support of the Afghan people by better protecting them. This is one of the lessons we learned from the Iraq surge, which also showed that protecting population centers requires more troops. Presumably this is what the generals will ask for, and it is what Mr. Obama should give them. Another lesson of Iraq is that local tribal leaders aren't likely to side with us until they are confident we intend to stay.

Afghanistan is bigger and more primitive than Iraq, but the U.S. and NATO are also much more popular than they were in 2007 in Iraq's Anbar province. Very few Afghans want the Taliban back in power. If foreign forces can provide enough security in the near term while we build Afghanistan's army and police forces, another counterinsurgency success should be possible. The worst choice Mr. Obama could make would be to repeat Mr. Bush's errors in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, when he talked about "clear, hold and build" without enough troops to do the job. Better to start with enough force, rather than having to ask for more every six months.

As for the recent elections, the allegations of fraud seem widespread and blatant enough to be credible. The Afghan electoral commission will have to decide if the cheating warrants a new election, but clearly it would be better for the victor's legitimacy if there were a runoff that was handled with better supervision. Mr. Karzai should understand that a tainted victory will only complicate his task of organizing a more effective government, which is also essential to winning a counterinsurgency.

In any case, the fight in Afghanistan is not about nation building or turning a tribal state into Westminster. The goal is to provide enough stability and Afghan support to prevent the country from once again becoming a sanctuary for terrorists who could attack the U.S. In short, this is a fight in our strategic interests. Leaving Afghanistan in its current state would be a defeat in the larger war on terror, which would encourage jihadists everywhere.

President Obama may not want to spend any political capital on Afghanistan, but he has no choice. The main job of his generals should be to win the war, not also to have to sell it, especially when the main opposition so far is emerging from the President's own left-flank. The opposition will also grow on the right if Americans conclude he isn't providing the forces or personal leadership needed to win. Now is the time for Mr. Obama to give his generals everything they need to defeat the Taliban, or leave and explain why he's concluded that Afghanistan is no longer worth the fight.


http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0909/Conservatives_back_Obama_on_Afghanistan.html?showall

Dear Mr. President:

The situation in Afghanistan is grave and deteriorating. This is in part the legacy of an under resourced war effort that has cost us and the Afghans dearly. The Taliban has retaken important parts of the country, while a flawed U.S. strategy has led American forces into secondary efforts far away from critical areas. However, we remain convinced that the fight against the Taliban is winnable, and it is in the vital national security interest of the United States to win it.

You’ve called Afghanistan an "international security challenge of the highest order," and stated that "the safety of people around the world is at stake." Last month you told a convention of veterans, “Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people.”

We fully agree with those sentiments. We congratulate you on the leadership you demonstrated earlier this year when you decided to deploy approximately 21,000 additional troops and several thousand civilian experts as a part of a serious counterinsurgency campaign. Your appointments of General Stanley McChrystal as top commander and David Rodriguez as second in command in Afghanistan exemplified the seriousness of purpose you spoke about during the campaign. We are heartened to see that the much needed overhaul of our military operations has begun.

Since the announcement of your administration’s new strategy, we have been troubled by calls for a drawdown of American forces in Afghanistan and a growing sense of defeatism about the war. With General McChrystal expected to request additional troops later this month, we urge you to continue on the path you have taken thus far and give our commanders on the ground the forces they need to implement a successful counterinsurgency strategy. There is no middle course. Incrementally committing fewer troops than required would be a grave mistake and may well lead to American defeat. We will not support half-measures that repeat the errors of the past.

This is, as you have said, a war that we cannot afford to lose. Failure to defeat the Taliban would likely lead to a return of al Qaeda to Afghanistan and could result in terrorist attacks on the United States or our allies. An abandonment of Afghanistan would further destabilize the region, and put neighboring Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal at risk. All our efforts to support Islamabad’s fight against the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal regions will founder if we do not match those achievements on the other side of that country’s porous northwestern border.

As you observed during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, “You don't muddle through the central front on terror and you don't muddle through going after bin Laden. You don't muddle through stamping out the Taliban.” We completely agree. Having “muddled through” in Afghanistan for years, this is no longer a politically, strategically, or morally sustainable approach.

Mr. President, you have put in place the military leadership and sent the initial resources required to begin bringing this war to a successful conclusion. The military leadership has devised a strategy that will reverse the errors of previous years, free Afghans from the chains of tyranny, and keep America safe. We call on you to fully resource this effort, do everything possible to minimize the risk of failure, and to devote the necessary time to explain, soberly and comprehensively, to the American people the stakes in Afghanistan, the route to success, and the cost of defeat.

With the continued bravery of our troops, and your continued full support for them and their command team, America and our allies can and will prevail in Afghanistan.


Sincerely,

[a subset of the early signatories]

Steve Biegun

Max Boot

Eliot A. Cohen

Ryan C. Crocker

Eric Edelman

Jamie M. Fly

Abe Greenwald

John Hannah

Frederick W. Kagan

Robert Kagan

William Kristol

Tod Lindberg

Clifford May

Joshua Muravchik

Keith Pavlischek

John Podhoretz

Randy Scheunemann

Gary Schmitt

Dan Senor

Marc Thiessen

Peter Wehner

Kenneth Weinstein


Afghanistan Is Not 'Obama's War'
Republicans should never do to President Obama what many Democrats did to President Bush
By DAN SENOR AND PETER WEHNER
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204731804574390631037605374.html

In his column for the Washington Post on Tuesday, the influential conservative George Will provided intellectual fodder for the campaign among some Republicans to hang the Afghanistan war around the Obama administration's neck. Washington, he wrote, should "keep faith" with our fighting men and women by "rapidly reversing the trajectory of America's involvement in Afghanistan." "Obama's war," a locution one is now beginning to hear from other conservatives, is an expression of discontent that has been smoldering beneath the surface for several months.

The weakening public support for continuing the counterinsurgency campaign is not surprising. In the midst of an economic crisis people are tempted to draw inward. Add to that a general war weariness in the U.S. and the fact that the Afghanistan war is not going well right now—violence in Afghanistan is already far worse this year than last—and you have the makings of an unpopular conflict.

But the case of conservative opposition to the war in Afghanistan—as well as increasingly in Iraq—is symptomatic of something larger: the long history of political parties out of power advancing a neo-isolationist outlook. For example, Democrats were vocal opponents of President Reagan's support for the Nicaraguan contras and the democratic government in El Salvador, the U.S. invasion of Grenada, the deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe, and the forceful stand against the Soviet Union generally.

Many Democrats were also uneasy with or outright hostile to the policies of President George H.W. Bush. That included strong criticisms of the U.S. liberation of Panama and widespread Democratic opposition to the first Gulf War, which only 10 Senate Democrats voted to authorize.

The tables were turned in the 1990s: Then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay called Kosovo "Clinton's war" and a majority of Senate Republicans voted against a bombing campaign, even after the Serbs had created half-a-million refugees in Kosovo and were on a path to destabilizing southern Europe. And, unlike today, this was not at a time of economic insecurity at home. Nor were we shouldering the military burden alone (18 other nations fought alongside us in the Balkans). Conservatives also argued that President Clinton's strikes against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 1998 were meant to distract the nation's attention from the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In 2000, in a sharp rebuke of the Clinton administration's nation-building, Condoleezza Rice—then a top adviser to presidential candidate George W. Bush—said that the 82nd Airborne should not be walking kids to school.

In this decade, Democrats were fierce opponents of President Bush's Iraq policy, going so far as to declare the war lost and doing everything in their power to stop the surge—which turned out to be enormously successful—from going forward.

Our concern is that this tendency for the party out of (executive) power to pull back from America's international role and to undermine a president of the opposing party will gain strength when it comes to President Obama's policy on Afghanistan.

The president deserves credit for his commitment earlier this year to order an additional 17,000 troops for Afghanistan, as well as his decision to act on the recommendation of Gen. David Petraeus and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to replace the U.S. commander in Afghanistan with Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

These were tough and courageous decisions. The president's actions have clearly unsettled some members of his own party, who hoped he would begin to unwind America's commitment in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama not only ignored their counsel; he doubled down his commitment. There should therefore be no stronger advocates for Mr. Obama's Afghanistan strategy than the GOP.

The war in Afghanistan is a crucial part of America's broader struggle against militant Islam. If we were to fail in Afghanistan, it would have calamitous consequences for both Pakistan and American credibility. It would consign the people of Afghanistan to misery and hopelessness. And Afghanistan would once again become home to a lethal mix of terrorists and insurgents and a launching point for attacks against Western and U.S. interests. Neighboring governments—especially Pakistan's with its nuclear weapons—could quickly be destabilized and collapse.

Progress and eventual success in Afghanistan—which is difficult but doable—would, when combined with a similar outcome in Iraq, constitute a devastating blow against jihadists and help stabilize a vital and volatile region.

We also believe supporting the president's Afghanistan policy is politically smart for Republicans. For one thing, isolationist tendencies don't do well in American politics. Even in a war as unpopular as Vietnam, George McGovern's "Come Home, America" cry backfired badly. So has every attempt since then. There is no compelling evidence that the congressional GOP was politically well served in the 1990s by opposing intervention in the Balkans.

In addition, indifference or outright opposition to the war would smack of hypocrisy, given the Republican Party's strong (and we believe admirable) support for President Bush's post-9/11 policies, its robust support for America's democratic allies, and its opposition to rogue regimes that threaten American interests. Republicans should stand for engagement with, rather than isolation from, the world. Strongly supporting the president on Afghanistan would also be a sign of grace on the part of Republicans. We know all too well how damaging it was to American foreign policy to face an opposition that was driven by partisan fury against our commander in chief. Republicans should never do to President Obama what many Democrats did to President Bush.

Mr. Obama's policies shouldn't be immune from criticism; far from it. Responsible criticism is a necessary part of self-government. And we are particularly concerned about reports that retired Marine Gen. James Jones, Mr. Obama's national security adviser, told Gen. McChrystal earlier this summer not to ask for more troops and that the Obama White House is wary to offer what Gen. McChrystal says he will need to succeed.

We do believe, however, that Republicans should resist the reflex that all opposition parties have, which is to oppose the stands of a president of the other party because he is a member of the other party. In this instance, President Obama has acted in a way that advances America's national security interests and its deepest values. Republicans should say so. As things become even more difficult in Central Asia, it's important to keep bad political patterns we have seen before from re-emerging.

Mr. Senor is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Wehner is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. They both served as officials in the administration of George W. Bush.