We didn't go to war in Afghanistan like we did in Iraq, just because of what happened to the USSR.  The problem is that we didn't finish the job of taking out Osama, since we were distracted by Bush's insistence of our sending everyone we had into Iraq. If we had finished the job in Afghanistan, I'm 1000% positive a whole lot of things would be very different.

Iraq is "calming"? But Obama said throughout the primary campaign that the surge was failing and could not succeed. Wussup?

This is a very worrying theme for Obama to be emphasizing. In the first place, as Cole and others have noted, replicating the Soviet strategy in Afghanistan will most likely produce similar results. Moreover, while abandoning Afghanistan is clearly a bad idea, no one should imagine that it is of anywhere near the strategic significance of Iraq.

Second, the idea that a few worn-out old duffers hiding in a cave in Waziristan represent a major threat to the security of the United States is simply preposterous. The 9/11 attacks came from HAMBURG, for Christ's sake, not Afghanistan. Bin Laden became significant because he was a billionaire, not because he was a military genius. Terrorism has mutated, developed alternative funding mechanisms, and is mostly residing in the major cities of our allies, at least in terms of any serious threat to the US.

Third, Obama is increasingly sounding likely to cause a major fiasco in Pakistan. Authorizing all sorts of cowboy tactics with special ops folks or even, God forbid, regular troops, is simply a non-starter for the Pakistanis, and everyone should check the data here--Pakistan is a huge country with impossible terrain and nuclear weapons. How, exactly, does Obama think he's going to push them around?

A resurgent Al Qaeda is in Pakistan's western tribal region, alongside Afghanistan's Eastern boundary, apparently connected with the Taliban forces that are making trouble for us in Afghanistan (and possibly elsewhere - remember 9/11? These are the guys who actually attacked us).  So - I'm not for giving up on Afghanistan.  

Admiral Mullen and others in the military say we are neglecting that fight because we have hocked everything to feed the surge in Iraq (where we are fighting people who had nothing to do with 9/11, by the way).  The implication is that we might get better results in Afghanistan - and maybe in Pakistan - if we could pull our asses out of the deep hole we have been digging in Iraq.  Why isn't that worth trying?

Maybe Afghanistan is just another hole, but it seems to me we have never even tried to win that fight - and that was a fight worth winning.

Neil

teplukhin:

Iraq is 'calming'? But Obama said throughout the primary campaign that the surge was failing and could not succeed. Wussup?"

Simple: he was wrong, er, mistaken. Obama should reconsider his views on Iraq, lest he get tagged (legitimately) an appeaser. He needs to articulate an overarching philosophy to apply to the entire ME, including Afghanistan. What are his goals, his priorities, our interests, today?

We went into Afghanistan strictly out of self-defense. That country would be much more secure than it is now if it weren't for Pakistan. Accordingly, we must warn the Pakistani authorities that if they are unable to secure the Afghan border, we will have to do the job ourselves by whatever effective means necessary.

A resurgent Taliban is in nobody's interest.  Why is that so hard to grasp?  

Every terrorist attack in the West over the past 15 years has its origins in central Asia. Logistics, money, orders, training all originated in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Routing out those elements, which isn't even remotely the same as occupying the country with 130k troops like the Soviets did. The Soviets were a brutal military occupier that made refugees of millions, killed millions and used rape and torture as instruments of war. They were hated by every element of Afghan society. The United States is not.

Additionally, the Afghans were only able to wage an effective campaign because they were fighting the Soviets with a balanced mix of weapons from the United States that neutralized their air superiority. The Taliban has no such ally in their quixotic fight to regain control of Afghanistan. Hell, they couldn't have defeated the Northern Alliance if they hadn't been supported by Pakistan.

As for Pakistan, nukes or no nukes (nukes I might add they can’t deploy against the United States with ballistic missiles or use against troops in theatre without an apocalyptic reprisal), they have no choice but to cooperate; it's in their own interest to remove a metastasizing fundamentalist threat from their own society.

Obama is right. The biggest threat we face is a failed state in Afghanistan.

Here's a lark.  Surge for Afghanistan would work while a surge in Iraq won't.  That's a hilarious position for the Defeatocrats to take.

jwl - doesn't that thinking strike you as a little simplistic?  Are you saying there are NO differences between Iraq and Afghanistan at all?

I can completely buy that the surge in Iraq achieved little.  Well, perhaps it encouraged the Iraqi government to say "Yankee go home!" but it didn't change the underlying situation, or at least not in ways convivial to our interests.  That the Shiites militias were packing up upon the start of the surge waiting for US troops to do their dirty work was manifestly obvious and well reported.  Now that more US lives were spent in the Iranian side of a sectarian war you're happy?  Of course the fact that the military starting policing rather than soldiering (separate from the Surge) could have nothing to do with anything, or the possibility that the Iraqis have gotten a little tired of the bloodbath etc.  Nope, all surge obviously.  And BTW, what was the stated goal of the surge?  And, more importantly, is Iraw now not an active war zone?

However since the situation in Afghanistan is a little different (well, lots different) and the issue is basically that the administration has always starved the war effort (well, OK, perhaps there the two efforts are similar, but it's many orders of magnitude worse in Afghanistan)  I could understand a substantial and prolonged troop increase helping things dramatically.  A focus of effort and all that.

Irony is no problem for Dem's, jwl.

I'm for winning in Iraq AND Afghanistan, but we have to be clear about what that means. It's not identical, but to the extent that in both cases we are supporting legitimate elected governments against fascist elements, it's close enough for government work. We need to persist, but the best way to succeed in both cases is not ultimately going to be dumping a lot of grunts into the Hindu Kush any more than into Mesopotamia.

"Routing out these elements" is Mission Impossible. The Taliban are the Pashtuns, and we will not be able to apply sufficient military force to change the basic ideology of Central Asia any more than the Russians, or the British, or Alexander. Ditto for Iraq.  We can demonstrate that it is not in their best interests to attack the United States, however.

In Afghanistan, I'd start with the de-criminalization of drugs and a UN program to buy up the opium crop. It could be donated with good effect to the WHO, but dumping it into the sea would be cheaper and more effective than punishing starving Afghan farmers for the recreational habits of people in rich countries.

In Iraq, we're finally doing the right thing, and should make it clear as soon as possible that we will be having an orderly transition that builds on the costly gains already made.

jwl, just to clarify, a surge is, by definition temporary; Obama is talking about escalating efforts in Afghanistan.

I'm only giving partial credit to the surge for the progress in Iraq, since the real steps were political in nature, and anyone besides Bush and his cronies could have finagled the same gains without a single extra soldier simply by being less hated by Iraqi insurgents.

And could someone remind me why The Surge justifies Bush for not using sufficient force to hunt down the actual masterminds of the 9/11 attacks?

JWL, here is the real lark; we have 130k troops deployed in Iraq and the masterminds of 9/11 are running around scot free in Afghanistan. Leave it to a Republitard administration to retaliate against the wrong country!

RP - how do you get the allies to put their troops in harm's way and, y'know, fight the Taliban with us?

tep, the only "allies" that count in Afghanistan are the ones who live there. What are you suggesting?

It would be really nice if France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and a few others would re-task their military establishments to reflect a long-term commitment to fighting in places that need fighting in like  Afghanistan, Africa, etc. That requires that their democratic political institutions make a good-faith effort to do so.  Should the "pressure" we put on them to step up be playing chicken with Pakistan?

 There is simply not going to be a Central Asian Reconquista, and the Euros are smart enough to know it. Basing any important concerns on them is the same sort of mistake as talking about "fixing" gas prices by drilling in ANWAR. We'll get real sacrifices in proportional terms by various Anglos, and the Poles, but if we're talking about "routing out the Taliban", we're talking about going to war with Pakistan, and nothing anyone besides China and India could do would pull our nuts out of the fire in that dreadful eventuality.

I'm amazed.  

I hadn't anticipated this twist in the "war on terror" - I didn't realize that those of us who think the fight in Waziristan and Afghanistan is worthwhile would still be called Defeatocrats by those who want to quit that fight - by those whose endorsement of the war in Iraq has robbed us of the resources and focus needed to achieve our goals in Afghanistan.

Some of these people are all for launching attacks on Iran as well as an indefinite occupation of Iraq, and it is hard for me to understand their reluctance to pursue Al Qaeda in its stronghold in Waziristan, and its resurgent Taliban ally.  

The war on terror began with regime change in Afghanistan - and we were all on the same page then.  It was the invasion of Iraq that split us into Patriots and Defeatocrats, and I have come to expect the self-proclaimed patriots to maintain that frame in all debates about Iraq.  But who knew that frame could also extend to Afghanistan?

Here we have jwl - typical of the Iraq war fan club - calling us Defeatocrats for wanting to press the war against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.  

Now it seems we are divided into Defeatocrats and Defeaticans.

Aside from the obvious point that this makes about the incoherence of the Iraq war fan club, I am unable to fathom how any American can so easily dismiss the pursuit of the people who launched the 9/11 attacks.  

If we've mishandled things so badly in Afghanistan that it is now in our best interests to end that fight, so be it.  But I keep hearing that we need to shift resources to Afghanistan now - that it isn't too late.  If the surge worked, why can't we send 30,000 troops to Kandahar today?

Even George W. Bush wants to send troops to Afghanistan.  Normally, that would give me pause - but in this case it just makes me wonder at the naysayers who are so sure that we should quit that fight without having ever tried very hard to win it.

Neil  

"Iraq remains an Arab Middle East problem. It is not threatening global security, despite all the hype of the Bush administration that Iraq has nuclear weapons, that Iraq is hosting al-Qaeda. Yes, al-Qaeda is in Iraq, but al-Qaeda in Iraq has never had the power or strength to launch terrorist attacks against the United States or Europe or anywhere else. But the al-Qaeda from Afghanistan and Pakistan is still launching terrorist attacks. Every attack since 2004 in Europe or Africa, which has either been carried out or been thwarted, has emanated from this region, from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region."

- Ahmed Rashid

tomeg and teplukhin - Obama said the surge was failing because he felt the purpose of the surge was to give the Iraqi government room for political reconciliation, which was not happening.  So in that sense, it was failing.  In the violence sense, however, he did acknowledge some improvements.  I remember in one of the debates, Obama talked about how violence was down, but still at the unacceptable levels of 2005.  So he did admit that the surge was doing something, just not anything too significant.

RP - "tep, the only "allies" that count in Afghanistan are the ones who live there."

Really? The British and Canadian forces' contribution is not signficant? That would be news to them and to our troops over there.

Also, what is so magical about US troops that makes it crucial for us to, per Obama, send a couple more battalions to Afghan and yet, per you, NOT desire help from a couple of NATO battalions already positioned to the north? Tell me why, again, the NATO allies' troops who've actually been there, on the ground, in the northern provinces would not be helpful were they to stop pushing cookies and start fighting in the south?

Trouble is demalato, it HAS happened.  The reason Dems don't talk about benchmarks anymore is because most have been achieved.  Not that you'd know from defeat-invested MSM.

You're right, tep, the Anglo sprechers are doing yeoman's work in Afghanistan.  And teh Dutch.  But most NATO countries' militaries are sad jokes, NATO having chosen comfort over security from the mid-70s on.  Combine that with VERY shaky support at home for the mission, and we're lucky they are in country at all.

tep, I'm well aware of the contributions of some of the allies. But we're talking a few thousand troops here in a country that's significantly bigger and more populous than Iraq, and has some of the world's most difficult terrain. There is no, zero, chance that things in Afghanistan are going to be significantly improved by the deployment of another few thousand Frenchmen without sufficient air assets. I'm all for everyone pitching in, but we need to be realistic. There aren't more allied troops in Afghanistan because there simply aren't very many more allied troops anywhere suited to this operation. And in terms of their rules of engagement, this is a political issue in Paris and Berlin that isn't going to change much. Recognizing that the allies should do more is not the same as expecting that they will.

The single most effective thing we could do in Afghanistan at this point would be to buy up the opium crop and donate it to the WHO.

neil, I suggest you look at a map. Waziristan is in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation of 165 million people who are unanimously opposed to our operating on their territory. The idea that a few worn-out old duffers in caves there are more of a threat to US interests than starting a fight with Pakistan is psychotic. The 9/11 attacks were launched from Hamburg, not Afghanistan, and there are currently many more terrorists who represent a real threat to the US in London, Rotterdamm, and the Paris suburbs than in Waziristan.

Amen, rp, especially to your suggestion to neil (and to all) to look at a map.  Afghanistan is the size of Texas, with mountains.  It will be the work of a generation to keep the taliban bottled up, because they can run across the Paki border with impunity, and we can't go after them the way we did in Cambodia in 1970-71.  A few thousand troops, ours or anyone's won't make a big difference.  look for teh AF to get more involved, and more stories about us bombing innocents.

Greater commitment to Afghanistan is a fine idea, but when Obama suggested invading western Pakistan to get at al Qaeda, I knew he was a Segolene Royal-caliber lightweight on foreign policy.  Such a move might have some decent arguments going for it, but to advocate going into Pakistan while leaving Iraq is sort of idiotic.  Obama's current WOT policy is a convoluted political straddle that wouldn't stand up to a strong wind, let alone his actual ascension to CINC.  

gwolf - well put. I was thinking more of JFK and Cuber when I heard Obama's Pakistan gambit. The guy is clearly making this up as he goes along, and if, like reckless young Jack Kennedy, he decides to actually operationalize his all-too-political ploys as CINC, he will almost certainly make some very large blunders in his first 500 days.

Obviously, if even the hawks cannot agree to press the fight in Afghanistan and the cross-border tribal region of Pakistan, we should get out now.  Immediately.

I am left to wonder how the one fight we all agreed was worthy of the lives of American troops has become so bereft of support now, but I will get over it.  What I guess I want to know is why we are still hanging on there if it is such a wasted and futile expedition?

For the record, liberals can and do read maps, and patronizing suggestions to the contrary are not exactly persuasive.    

Neil

gwolf,

You are, of course, making it up in order to smear Obama.  He never suggested invading Pakistan.  What he said is that he would be willing to take action -- of a special ops nature -- against terrorists lodged in the tribal areas if the government of Pakistan were unwilling to do so.

It is indeed a curiousity that the right and right-leaning who are so eager to pursue "victory" in Iraq (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean), where we did not have terrorist enemies and which was not a base for terrorists before we invaded, are now indifferent to the outcome in Afghanistan and Pakistan where the terrorists who attacked us were and are lodged.  It strongly suggests that the right really has no interest in defeating terrorists, only in impressing hostile powers which was likely the real point of the Iraq war.  All the blood and treasure is being spent for what amounts to an ostentatious display of armed power.  Apparently those on the right are deciding that there is no more prestige to be gained in Afgahanistan -- its mountainous, poor, gave the Brits and the Russians a hard time so no shame in "cutting and running" there.  In Iraq, the right perceives our prestige still to be on the line, hence "stay the course."

All of this has zip, nadda to do with actually defeating our enemies.  That would explain why the effort has been so strategically inept.  Defeating are actual enemies isn't really he purpose for the right at all. What sort of world would we be living in if American leaders during World War II had been more concerned with display than with actually defeating those who posed a mortal threat to our world?

I'm not trying to smear Obama!  I like him, and will probably vote for him.  And anyway, I'm usually willing to give candidates a fair bit of slack on whatever they say on the campaign trail.  But on most foreign policy issues, he is indeed making it up as he goes along.  His very boldness and vision entails real risk.  The comparison to Kennedy is quite apt: everybody remembers the moonshot and his stern profile during the missile crisis, fewer think of the Bay of Pigs or escalation in Vietnam.  

Anyway, back to Pakistan.  It's quite true that all Obama suggested was some sort of covert action, which makes enough potential sense that the Bush DOD thought of it too, but ended up scrapping because doing it right would inevitably lead to basically... an invasion of Pakistan.  Which may yet come to pass.  But I wouldn't wish it on us until we know we can't avoid it.  

I think an up-front assumption of good faith is warranted until some evidence of bad faith shows up, roi.  I don't get the impression that gwolfjr is trying to "smear" Obama, and I'm certainly not "indifferent to the outcome in Afghanistan and Pakistan".

I think it's fair to say that concerns about the ideas that, 1) Afghanistan has more strategic importance than Iraq; 2)  pumping more grunts into Afghanistan and perhaps Pakistan is some kind of solution to our problems there; and, 3) we can easily and quickly transform Central Asia by ignoring Iraq--are legitimate.

If we really want to make a dramatic, low-cost impact on Afghanistan, we should buy up the opium crop and donate it to the WHO. A scenario in which we send two or three more combat brigades to Afghanistan in order to punish starving Afghan farmers for the recreational habits of people in rich countries is a recipe for disaster. I'm not in favor of abandoning Afghanistan OR Iraq, and think we should be doing things in both places that work in our interests.

It seems to me that Iraq is a lost cause, and probably Afghanistan.

The surge worked halfway - an effective use of the military after Bush listened to his generals and not to Cheney/Rumsfeld/Addington, has reduced violence. But what about the political solution the pause in violence is supposed to have provided?  There is very little but window dressing here.  The fact is that we have sacrificied 4100 men and women so that a Shiite government that is a only slightly covert puppet of Tehran rules over Iraq.  Maliki is biding his time - protected by 150,000 of our troops against his enemies, either Sunni, Al Qaida, or other Shiite factions - until our troops eventually go away - either completely back home or redeployed to Afghaistan.  Iran has won this war, and we have lost it.  Bush and McCain know the only way to 'hold' Iraq - i.e. disguise the fact that Shiite Iraq is a satellite of Iran - is to permanently station troops there.  There is no 'winning' available to us without it.  But neither Bush nor McCain can state this obvious fact to the American voter.  Obama no longer uses the 'D' word (defeat) because the supposedly liberal MSM has been flummoxed and bamboozled into believing the mantra 'the surge worked'.

Although I am an Obama supporter, I don't believe he's right about Afghanistan, either.  Ask the UK or Russia who can defeat a locally bred (but Jihad supported) insurgency.  I believe he's emphasized Afghanistan because the public is just becoming more aware of it now that US deaths there top the death count in Iraq.

Ultimately, I don't believe there's a role anymore for large numbers of US troops anywhere in the Middle East.  I believe our only option there is Realpolitik (i.e. tallking directly to Iran and seeing where we can play them off against Al Qaida and Russia/China) and a strong special forces plan to get Osama Bin Laden dead before he dies of natural causes.

I invite any and all comment, but please, no ad hominems about me or about liberals or conservatives in general.  Remember, I'm simply a well-read American civilian.

I agree with much of what you say, wnalpert, but:

--It's unrealistic to expect Washington's version of "reconciliation" to occur quickly in Iraq. We're asking this of people who were engaged in attempted genocide against each other not long ago. Some of the things we're demanding in our "benchmarks" are analogous to demanding that Israel in the Fifties agree to pay pensions for ex-SS troops.

--It is inconsistent to complain about the independence shown by Iraq's government-- rejecting leaders we put forward, electing leaders we don't like, pushing back against our demands for immediate reconciliation, defining their own relationship with Iran, etc--and then call them "puppets" as many critics do. Iraq has the most representative and legitimate government in the Arab world.

--It is very much to our advantage to have allies in the Iraqi government who have good relations with Iran. We will inevitably have to re-think our relationship with Iran, and having made possible the first Shi'ite-dominated democracy in world history next door can only help.

--It is a huge misconception to imagine that just because Iraq is majority Shi'ite, and the current leadership has decent relations with Iran, that they are or will become Iranian puppets.

I know this post was about Afghanistan, but I think these points about Iraq need making.

Robert -

Thanks for your response. I appreciate your points, but I still don't see how the Iraqi Shiite democracy ever stands on its own if American troops are still there.  Assuming the reconciliation necessary for this to happen takes place with our troops still there, how can we then withdraw and expect the democratic state to hold?  Even if it then holds, how does this fragile democracy withstand the huge influence of its powerful, rich next door neighbor? Whether Iran decides to use its soft power (massive financial aid for infrastructure rebuilding) or its hard power ( troops inside Iraq) I don't see any credible way for an independent democracy to survive there.

You're absolutely right that we'll have to re-think our relationship with Iran.   I don't believe there's any way to stop them from developing nuclear weapons - a bombing raid on Iran, either by the US or by Israel, will be so catastrophic to all our stategies in the Middle East that I can't believe a rational President will let it happen - if only for the horrible effects on the world economy that a resultant $200 or more barrel of oil will produce.  

By the way, I really like the idea stated in your previous post that we should buy up the opium crop in Afghanistan.  Not only does this advance our cause there, it would establish a new direction on one of our other catastrophic failure of foreigh policy, our 'war' on drugs.

Thanks -

Bill Alpert

Just a quick correction.  US deaths in Afghanistan are 556 so far, so not nearly as many as in Iraq, contra Mr. Alpert above.

Yes, Iran will get nuclear weapons, and we should not bomb for the reasons described above.  Then Deterrence kicks in, with the added proviso that if a nuke goes off somewhere and we can't figure out who did it, Iran gets it.  This policy makes the Iranians have a stake in non-proliferation, at the very least.

butchie--I'm sure Alpert was referring to the "monthly total", which for last month was for the first time higher in Afghanistan than in Iraq. We're still on the same page concerning Iran.

Bill--the Iraqi government "stands on its own" when it's doing most of the domestic security work and policing, and we're back in the desert far away from Iraqi population centers guaranteeing Iraqi territorial integrity with air-power and high mobility/lethality quick reaction forces. We did about the same thing for South Korea for decades, and they seem to be standing on their own pretty well.

I'm not overly concerned about Iranian influence, which while inevitable is not going to be more than our influence as long as we maintain a reasonably consistent bi-partisan policy that doesn't bully or threaten to abandon the Iraqis over trivial matters. Arabs have been resisting Persian influences for a long time, and they have a lot more support for doing so in the US than they did with other arrangements in the past. Again, this influence business is a two-way street. With the Iraqis playing the middle-man in a rapprochement between the US and Iran, everybody wins.