With Israel as its "local cop on the beat," as the Nixon administration put it, the US has conducted a generation-long war for the control of energy resources in a 1500-mile radius around the Persian Gulf -- from the Mediterranean to the Indus valley, from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia.
The US has employed various modalities for controlling the states of the region, from bribery to mass murder. The present strategic debate within the USG, such as it is, is about which modalities are appropriate, and where. E.g., the Israelis are rightly worried that the US is about to find the cooperation of the Iranian government as valuable as their own; and Obama's designation of AfPak as the "central front" is a recognition that Pakistan is the primary source, actual and potential, of resistance to US war aims.
The prospect is for increasing US control in Pakistan, regardless of the resistance. Tariq Ali in his important new book writes “political commentators in the United States together with a cabal of mimics in Pakistan regularly suggest that an Islamist revolution is incubating in a country [Pakistan] that is seriously threatened by 'jihadi terrorists.' The only function of such a wild assertion is to invite a partial US occupation and make the jihadi takeover a self-fulfilling prophecy.” --CGE
Michael Pollak wrote:
>
> [This is the Stratfor chief at his more interesting IMHO. (Of course it
> goes without saying that people who are appalled by a peak into the
> imperial establishment mind should skip it). No URL, unfortunately, but
> if anyone wants to read the relatively small part of the text I snipped
> I'll be glad to send it to you.]
>
> THE STRATEGIC DEBATE OVER AFGHANISTAN
>
> By George Friedman
>
> <snip>
>
> The expectation in November 2006 was that as U.S. President George W.
> Bush's strategy had been repudiated, his only option was to begin
> withdrawing troops. Even if Bush didn't begin this process, it was
> expected that his successor in two years certainly would have to do so.
> The situation was out of control, and U.S. forces did not seem able to
> assert control. The goals of the 2003 invasion, which were to create a
> pro-American regime in Baghdad, redefine the political order of Iraq and
> use Iraq as a base of operations against hostile regimes in the region,
> were unattainable. It did not seem possible to create any coherent
> regime in Baghdad at all, given that a complex civil war was under way
> that the United States did not seem able to contain.
>
> Most important, groups in Iraq believed that the United States would be
> leaving. Therefore, political alliance with the United States made no
> sense, as U.S. guarantees would be made moot by withdrawal. The
> expectation of an American withdrawal sapped U.S. political influence,
> while the breadth of the civil war and its complexity exhausted the U.S.
> Army. Defeat had been psychologically locked in.
>
> Bush's decision to launch a surge of forces in Iraq was less a military
> event than a psychological one. Militarily, the quantity of forces to be
> inserted -- some 30,000 on top of a force of 120,000 -- did not change
> the basic metrics of war in a country of about 29 million. Moreover, the
> insertion of additional troops was far from a surge; they trickled in
> over many months. Psychologically, however, it was stunning. Rather than
> commence withdrawals as so many expected, the United States was actually
> increasing its forces. The issue was not whether the United States could
> defeat all of the insurgents and militias; that was not possible. The
> issue was that because the United States was not leaving, the United
> States was not irrelevant. If the United States was not irrelevant, then
> at least some American guarantees could have meaning. And that made the
> United States a political actor in Iraq.
>
> Petraeus combined the redeployment of some troops with an active
> political program. At the heart of this program was reaching out to the
> Sunni insurgents, who had been among the most violent opponents of the
> United States during 2003-2006. The Sunni insurgents represented the
> traditional leadership of the mainstream Sunni tribes, clans and
> villages. The U.S. policy of stripping the Sunnis of all power in 2003
> and apparently leaving a vacuum to be filled by the Shia had left the
> Sunnis in a desperate situation, and they had moved to resistance as
> guerrillas.
>
> The Sunnis actually were trapped by three forces. First, there were the
> Americans, always pressing on the Sunnis even if they could not crush
> them. Second, there were the militias of the Shia, a group that the
> Sunni Saddam Hussein had repressed and that now was suspicious of all
> Sunnis. Third, there were the jihadists, a foreign legion of Sunni
> fighters drawn to Iraq under the banner of al Qaeda. In many ways, the
> jihadists posed the greatest threat to the mainstream Sunnis, since they
> wanted to seize leadership of the Sunni communities and radicalize them.
>
> U.S. policy under former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been
> unbending hostility to the Sunni insurgency. The policy under Gates and
> Petraeus after 2006 -- and it must be understood that they developed
> this strategy jointly -- was to offer the Sunnis a way out of their
> three-pronged trap. Because the United States would be staying in Iraq,
> it could offer the Sunnis protection against both the jihadists and the
> Shia. And because the surge convinced the Sunnis that the United States
> was not going to withdraw, they took the deal. Petraeus' great
> achievement was presiding over the U.S.-Sunni negotiations and eventual
> understanding, and then using that to pressure the Shiite militias with
> the implicit threat of a U.S.-Sunni entente. The Shia subsequently and
> painfully shifted their position to accepting a coalition government,
> the mainstream Sunnis helped break the back of the jihadists and the
> civil war subsided, allowing the United States to stage a withdrawal
> under much more favorable circumstances.
>
> This was a much better outcome than most would have thought possible in
> 2006. It was, however, an outcome that fell far short of American
> strategic goals of 2003. The current government in Baghdad is far from
> pro-American and is unlikely to be an ally of the United States; keeping
> it from becoming an Iranian tool would be the best outcome for the
> United States at this point. The United States certainly is not about to
> reshape Iraqi society, and Iraq is not likely to be a long-term base for
> U.S. offensive operations in the region.
>
> Gates and Petraeus produced what was likely the best possible outcome
> under the circumstances. They created the framework for a U.S.
> withdrawal in a context other than a chaotic civil war, they created a
> coalition government, and they appear to have blocked Iranian influence
> in Iraq. But these achievements remain uncertain. The civil war could
> resume. The coalition government might collapse. The Iranians might
> become the dominant force in Baghdad. But these unknowns are enormously
> better than the outcomes expected in 2006. At the same time, snatching
> uncertainty from the jaws of defeat is not the same as victory.
>
> Afghanistan and Lessons from Iraq
>
> Petraeus is arguing that the strategy pursued in Iraq should be used as
> a blueprint in Afghanistan, and it appears that Obama and Gates have
> raised a number of important questions in response. Is the Iraqi
> solution really so desirable? If it is desirable, can it be replicated
> in Afghanistan? What level of U.S. commitment would be required in
> Afghanistan, and what would this cost in terms of vulnerabilities
> elsewhere in the world? And finally, what exactly is the U.S. goal in
> Afghanistan?
>
> In Iraq, Gates and Petraeus sought to create a coalition government
> that, regardless of its nature, would facilitate a U.S. withdrawal.
> Obama and Gates have stated that the goal in Afghanistan is the defeat
> of al Qaeda and the denial of bases for the group in Afghanistan. This
> is a very different strategic goal than in Iraq, because this goal does
> not require a coalition government or a reconciliation of political
> elements. Rather, it requires an agreement with one entity: the Taliban.
> If the Taliban agree to block al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan, the
> United States will have achieved its goal. Therefore, the challenge in
> Afghanistan is using U.S. power to give the Taliban what they want -- a
> return to power -- in exchange for a settlement on the al Qaeda question.
>
> In Iraq, the Shia, Sunnis and Kurds all held genuine political and
> military power. In Afghanistan, the Americans and the Taliban have this
> power, though many other players have derivative power from the United
> States. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is not Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
> al-Maliki; where al-Maliki had his own substantial political base,
> Karzai is someone the Americans invented to become a focus for power in
> the future. But the future has not come. The complexities of Iraq made a
> coalition government possible there, but in many ways, Afghanistan is
> both simpler and more complex. The country has a multiplicity of groups,
> but in the end only one insurgency that counts.
>
> Petraeus argues that the U.S. strategic goal -- blocking al Qaeda in
> Afghanistan -- cannot be achieved simply through an agreement with the
> Taliban. In this view, the Taliban are not nearly as divided as some
> argue, and therefore their factions cannot be played against each other.
> Moreover, the Taliban cannot be trusted to keep their word even if they
> give it, which is not likely.
>
>> From Petraeus' view, Gates and Obama are creating the situation that
>> existed
> in pre-surge Iraq. Rather than stunning Afghanistan psychologically with
> the idea that the United States is staying, thereby causing all the
> parties to reconsider their positions, Obama and Gates have done the
> opposite. They have made it clear that Washington has placed severe
> limits on its willingness to invest in Afghanistan, and made it appear
> that the United States is overly eager to make a deal with the one group
> that does not need a deal: the Taliban.
>
> Gates and Obama have pointed out that there is a factor in Afghanistan
> for which there was no parallel in Iraq -- namely, Pakistan. While Iran
> was a factor in the Iraqi civil war, the Taliban are as much a Pakistani
> phenomenon as an Afghan one, and the Pakistanis are neither willing nor
> able to deny the Taliban sanctuary and lines of supply. So long as
> Pakistan is in the condition it is in -- and Pakistan likely will stay
> that way for a long time -- the Taliban have time on their side and no
> reason to split, and are likely to negotiate only on their terms.
>
> There is also a military fear. Petraeus brought U.S. troops closer to
> the population in Iraq, and he is doing this in Afghanistan as well.
> U.S. forces in Afghanistan are deployed in firebases. These relatively
> isolated positions are vulnerable to massed Taliban forces. U.S.
> airpower can destroy these concentrations, so long as they are detected
> in time and attacked before they close in on the firebases. Ominously
> for the United States, the Taliban do not seem to have committed
> anywhere near the majority of their forces to the campaign.
>
> This military concern is combined with real questions about the endgame.
> Gates and Obama are not convinced that the endgame in Iraq, perhaps the
> best outcome that was possible there, is actually all that desirable for
> Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, this outcome would leave the Taliban in
> power in the end. No amount of U.S. troops could match the Taliban's
> superior intelligence capability, their knowledge of the countryside and
> their willingness to take casualties in pursuing their ends, and every
> Afghan security force would be filled with Taliban agents.
>
> And there is a deeper issue yet that Gates has referred to: the Russian
> experience in Afghanistan. The Petraeus camp is vehement that there is
> no parallel between the Russian and American experience; in this view,
> the Russians tried to crush the insurgents, while the Americans are
> trying to win them over and end the insurgency by convincing the
> Taliban's supporters and reaching a political accommodation with their
> leaders. Obama and Gates are less sanguine about the distinction -- such
> distinctions were made in Vietnam in response to the question of why the
> United States would fare better in Southeast Asia than the French did.
> From the Obama and Gates point of view, a political settlement would
> call for either a constellation of forces in Afghanistan favoring some
> accommodation with the Americans, or sufficient American power to compel
> accommodation. But it is not clear to Obama and Gates that either could
> exist in Afghanistan.
>
> Ultimately, Petraeus is charging that Obama and Gates are missing the
> chance to repeat what was done in Iraq, while Obama and Gates are afraid
> Petraeus is confusing success in Iraq with a universal counterinsurgency
> model. To put it differently, they feel that while Petraeus benefited
> from fortuitous circumstances in Iraq, he quickly could find himself
> hopelessly bogged down in Afghanistan. The Pentagon on May 11 announced
> that U.S. commander in Afghanistan Gen. David McKiernan would be
> replaced, less than a year after he took over, with Lt. Gen. Stan
> McChrystal. McKiernan's removal could pave the way for a broader
> reshuffling of Afghan strategy by the Obama administration.
>
> The most important issues concern the extent to which Obama wants to
> stake his presidency on Petraeus' vision in Afghanistan, and how
> important Afghanistan is to U.S. grand strategy. Petraeus has conceded
> that al Qaeda is in Pakistan. Getting the group out of Pakistan requires
> surgical strikes. Occupation and regime change in Pakistan are way
> beyond American abilities. The question of what the United States
> expects to win in Afghanistan -- assuming it can win anything there --
> remains.
>
> <end excerpt>
>
> Michael
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