http://www.metrotimes.com/news/story.asp?id=14540
November 11, 2009
Metro Times (Detroit)
Tread lightly
Juan Cole argues against sending lots of troops to Afghanistan
By Curt Guyette and W. Kim Heron
<snip>
Metro Times: By most accounts, the debate in the White House right
now isn't over whether to escalate or de-escalate the war in
Afghanistan, but rather over how many more troops to send there. If
you were talking to the president right now instead of us, what
would you say to him?
Juan Cole: If you are going to accomplish anything in Afghanistan,
you need a very light footprint.
MT: What would that footprint look like?
Cole: Let's back up and talk about what the goal is in Afghanistan.
Your strategy and your tactics are going to come out of your goal.
I'm a little bit afraid that, in regard to the goal, you see a lot
of mission creep. The goal has become standing up an Afghan
government and an Afghan military that's relatively stable and can
control the country. There's a lot of state-building involved in
that.
I am a severe skeptic on this score. I don't think that's a proper
goal for the U.S. military. I think we are dealing with a tribal
society of people who, as a matter of course, are organized by clan
and have feuds with each other, and feuds with other tribes, and
feuds with their cousins. I think that Washington misinterprets this
feuding as Talibanism, and thinks that if you put a lot of troops in
there, you can pacify the country and settle it down.
I just think it is a misreading of the character of the country.
Afghanistan is a country where localism is important, where people
don't like the central government coming in and bothering them.
There's a sense in which the communist government of the 1980s,
backed by the Soviet Union, wanted to drag Afghanistan kicking and
screaming into the late 20th century, and to do that you had to
impose central government policy on the countryside and on the
villagers. And the villagers rose up and kicked the Soviets and the
communists out. They were outraged, in part, against the
centralizing tendency of Kabul.
So, I just think that Afghanistan is a country that needs a light
touch. You just have to accept that there's going to be a certain
amount of disorder in the countryside as long as people are
organized tribally. And if you put 100,000 or 150,000 Western troops
in there, that's just more people to feud with.
MT: Given all that, what do you think success in Afghanistan would
entail?
Cole: If you are asking what I think is a plausible goal, I'd say it
is training an Afghan army and police force as best you can. But you
are just going to have to accept that it's going to be a weak
government. You can shore it up to some extent, but you need to
shore it up behind the scenes. It can't be seen to be a puppet
government, because that will undermine its legitimacy.
A government that can provide more services to people is good. Road
building is good. Encouraging the markets to open is good. But as
far as fighting what the U.S. is calling Taliban, they are really
just regional warlords. They might have a tactical alliance with the
old Taliban of Mullah Omar, but it's a mistake to sweep them all up
into a single category.
MT: Do you think there is a possibility that the Taliban that was in
power before the U.S. sent in troops could return to a position of
power that they held before?
Cole: It is unlikely the Taliban will come back in that way.
First of all, the opinion polls show that only 5 percent of Afghans
think well of Taliban. Five percent is a pretty low approval rating.
Of course, Taliban are mainly from the Pashtun ethnic group, which
is about 42 percent of the country, so there might be a few
districts that would be under Taliban rule if people have their say.
But the country's other ethnic groups don't support the Taliban. So
I don't anticipate them coming back.
And, even when they were in power, it was fairly easy to dislodge
them. All the U.S. had to do in 2001 was to give close air support
to the enemies of the Taliban. What I don't understand is why that's
not a standing option. This may be part of what Vice President Joe
Biden is saying, that it is always the case that if things get out
of hand we just give close air support to the enemies of the Taliban
and push them back.
MT: One version of events of 9/11 is that it was part of bin Laden's
strategy to lure us into Afghanistan and bleed us the way the
Soviets were bled ...
Cole: Bin Laden said this explicitly in 1996.
MT: So why do you think we fell for the trap?
Cole: It's just so tempting for a great power to have an area to go
into. Central Asia is rich in resources -- natural gas, and
Kazakhstan has petroleum and gold -- and there was this opportunity
to assert U.S. interests in Central Asia and push Russia back. There
are all kinds of reasons for which bin Laden was making us a very
attractive offer. He was offering us a very large, delicious piece
of cheese. Of course, it turns out that there was a very large
mousetrap attached to the cheese.
MT: What about the terrorism component of this -- the fear the
Taliban will shield al-Qaeda and provide a safe haven that will give
them a staging area to plan another attack on the United States?
Cole: First of all, that premise is flawed. There is virtually no
al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. As we speak, something on the order of 10
to 15 percent of Afghanistan is more or less controlled by Taliban.
And yet, there is virtually no al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. So if the
idea that Taliban equals safe harbor for al-Qaeda isn't true in the
present, why would it be true in the future?
In fact, why is it we don't think the Taliban can learn? They're
pretty smart people. They took on the Soviets and defeated them.
Surely they're dismayed at what happened to them after al-Qaeda
attacked the United States. I imagine a lot of them would slit
al-Qaeda's throats if they came anywhere near, out of anger at them
for ruining the good deal the Taliban had in Afghanistan.
MT: Al-Qaeda is a presence in Pakistan, though. How do we pursue
them there?
Cole: Al-Qaeda is a presence in some parts of the Administered
Tribal Areas of Pakistan, not in Pakistan proper. There are 15
federally administrated tribal areas. They are extremely craggy
countryside. Very, very difficult to penetrate.
And how many al-Qaeda operatives do you think are in the tribal
areas of Pakistan? Five hundred? A thousand? What I can't understand
is the argument that we need 100,000 troops in neighboring
Afghanistan because there is a small number of Arab radicals hiding
out in the hills of Waziristan. What can they do from there exactly?
I can't imagine that they have high-speed Internet. They're just
hiding out. Obviously, the way to deal with them is to have the
Pakistani government deal with them.
MT: We're increasingly seeing references to the AfPak conflict. Is
there a way that conflating issues involving Afghanistan and
Pakistan hinders understanding that those two countries are so
dissimilar?
Cole: It's crazy to put Afghanistan and Pakistan into the same
basket. Pakistan is a real country. It has a big civil service, and
it has a big army, and it has a long tradition of central government
rule. To conflate it with Afghanistan, which is just a very rural,
tribal, undeveloped place, is crazy.
MT: What do you think about the policy that began under Bush and
apparently increased under Obama to use unmanned drone aircraft to
take out suspected terrorists remotely in Pakistan? Do you think
that is working, or is that simply creating more enemies because
innocent civilians are also getting killed in those operations?
Cole: I think it is a very bad policy. First of all, it is illegal
under international law. It is a kind of summary execution. Second
of all, it angers the Pakistani public, and we want the Pakistani
public on our side. It detracts from the legitimacy of the Pakistani
government. The Pakistani government denounces us for doing it in
public, but we know behind the scenes that they are fully
cooperative with this program. In some ways it is laziness; those
drone strikes are substituting for the Pakistani government actually
asserting itself in Pakistani villages. It would be much better if
the Pakistani constabulary and security forces could actually assert
the prerogative of the Pakistani state in those areas. But we're
bombing them from the air. It is alleged that the U.S. drone strikes
kill far more civilians than terrorists. It's not the case that
they've killed no terrorists. Some known bad guys have been struck
in this way, but the price is too high.
MT: The war on terror is also one in which there is really no end
point. Isn't that one of the problems here?
Cole: The Obama administration, to its credit, has abandoned the
terminology of a war on terror. They are calling it an overseas
contingency operation, which sounds very temporary indeed. So, the
rhetoric of a long war is gone, but the policy of using this
sledgehammer of the Pentagon to deal with the mosquitoes of al-Qaeda
is still in place, and that's what needs to change.
MT: While Obama has been weighing the decision about what to do in
Afghanistan, and where to go from here, former Vice President Dick
Cheney has accused him of dithering. Do you think that is a fair
criticism, that Obama is coming off as being Hamlet-like and afraid
to take action?
Cole: Given that Cheney rushed us into at least two wars and seemed
eager for more, with hardly any debate, I just wish we'd had more
deliberation and planning in the past when he was in power. No, I
think the criticism is a complete crock. It's just an attempt to
play politics.
Look, when Obama came into office, the Afghan presidential elections
were scheduled for Aug. 20. How is Obama going to make policy about
Afghanistan without knowing who the president is going to be as of
Aug. 21? In fact, in Afghanistan, politics is very personalistic, so
it is important to know who your partner is going to be. I think
Obama came in hoping [Afghan President] Hamid Karzai might be
defeated; he thought that Karzai is part of the problem, and then
Karzai tried to steal the election, and we've had a lot of ups and
downs since then. It now appears that Karzai will remain in power.
But whether you do counterinsurgency or counterterrorism as policy
will depend very much on whether you have a reliable Afghan
government to fight with. And the Obama administration clearly
doesn't believe that Karzai is such a credible partner. So, I don't
see how he could have made policy with this political backdrop. It
would have been very dangerous. Now, the situation has been
clarified. It's not a good situation, and Obama will be in a
position to come to a considered, mature opinion.
MT: As we're talking, Abdullah has pulled out of the presidential
race and the Afghanistan runoff has been canceled; Karzai is talking
about cleaning up corruption and reaching out to the Taliban. Do you
think either of those things is likely to happen?
Cole: I think reaching out to the Taliban has already been
happening. Saudi Arabia has hosted meetings between Karzai's
representatives and major opposition forces. There are some groups
that are being called Taliban that are not; they are simply
religious Pashtun nationalists who have a beef with Karzai. They can
be cajoled; they can be offered positions; they can be offered
services from the central government. So they might be brought in
from the cold.
And, to his credit, that is one thing Karzai has been trying to do
-- to negotiate with his opposition. However, when you talk about
cleaning up corruption, even if Karzai wanted to do it, he wouldn't
be able to. Afghanistan is the fifth poorest country in the world,
with a culture of corruption that pervades the government. It's just
a way of life over there. If somebody does a favor for you, even if
they are in government service, they expect a tip. For us to imagine
that it is gong to be different anytime soon would be foolish.
MT: There is a widespread impression among a lot of people that the
troop surge worked in Iraq and that same type of effort could be
transferred to Afghanistan. Could you talk about that?
Cole: That would be a book, all of the reasons for which the two are
not the same. Iraq is a relatively advanced country. It's probably
60 or so percent literate; it has an industrial infrastructure. And
it is possible to have a government that functions in Iraq. In
Afghanistan -- and people don't understand this, but -- 90 percent
of the new Afghan army is illiterate. So you send these guys into
Kandahar to an address and they wouldn't even be able to read the
street signs. So, you just can't analogize from one to the other.
It's just crazy to try. They are not the same kinds of societies.
Also, I don't think the surge is what mainly turned things around in
Iraq. The Shiites won the civil war in Iraq. Nobody is winning civil
wars in Afghanistan. In fact, in Iraq, we were betting on the 60
percent majority Shiites. In Afghanistan, we're betting on the
minority against the Pashtun plurality. So the demographics are not
working for us in Afghanistan.
So, a) I don't think the surge is mainly what turned things around
and b) it's just not the same situation. So, if they are making
policy in Afghanistan by analogies from Iraq, that is very
dangerous.
MT: Speaking of Iraq, Obama has been committed to removing all U.S.
troops from there by the end of 2011 under the Status of Forces
agreement. Do you still see us on track to do that?
Cole: Obama is ahead of schedule on the Iraq withdrawal. In fact,
it's clear to me he's won that argument in Washington and with the
Pentagon. When he first came in, Petraeus and the other big generals
were on his case and were trying to reverse his commitment to get
out of Iraq, and they failed. And now, they appear to have become
convinced that he was right.
Juan Cole's Informed Comment blog is at juancole.com.
Curt Guyette and W. Kim Heron are news editor and editor of Metro
Times. Send comments to cguyette at metrotimes.com.