The End Game
No one denies the extent of the disastrous legacy Bush left president Obama. The descent of Afghanistan to the brink of anarchy was a result of eight years of willful oblivion. We embarked on this disaster, as we often do, dancing to the drums of gasoline, not trumpets of democracy. This war was about demographics and opportunities, about the geostrategic importance of Afghanistan, because of its proximity to the energy-producing regions in Central Asia, more to do with projecting “our power and influence” in the region and precious little to do with al-Qaeda, the monster that wreaked havoc on us. We now know that in March, a mere three months into the search for Bin Laden, the Persian-and-Arabic-speaking Special Force personnel were pulled out of Afghanistan for deployment in Iraq. We had no exit plan in Afghanistan and no practical solutions for “transformation”—not even the noble intentions. The complex contingency operation (in other words nation building) that was signed by Clinton in 1997 was not renewed by Bush, leaving a gaping hole in policy. Obama has the possibility to change the paradigm, going back to the initial promise of building a democracy, or the closest thing to it, with a long-term socio-economic solution that would make extremism irrelevant.
On the current course we may win a battle or two but we will loose the war, leaving Afghanistan to its own faith of anarchy under the extremists. And the last time Afghanistan was left unchecked, on the eve of the Soviet withdrawal, the country was caught in a spiraling escalation of regional chaos. It became a safe haven for jihadists, from where they rewarded us with a few murderous planes. This time it could be worse, especially if al-Qaeda having impregnated the neo-Taliban, like a deadly virus within a bacterium, gets its hands on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Our local woes will seem irrelevant when and if someone detonates a nuclear weapon in one of our cities. Obama was right in his assessment that this was the “good war”, but he has chosen the wrong method to fight it. The strategy that could work in Afghanistan is geo-economic not geo-political. It can be implemented if Obama begins to act less like a neo-con and more like a man who has won the Noble Peace Prize. He needs to “grasp the nettle and show his mettle,” at the cost of unpopularity. Afghanistan needs a carefully balanced approach, where the legitimacy of our actions is derived from the correlation of rhetoric and action, where we address the root causes of repression, injustice, and poverty that serve as jihadi magnets. Developing Afghan agriculture as a means of wading off the exponential revival of poppy cultivation has to be part of any “winning” strategy. Robert Kennedy noted, “The real constructive force in the world comes not from bombs but from imaginative ideas.” A framework based on engagement and common interests, without “arrogance or hostility or delusions of superiority” (Kennedy, again) will erase some of the hatred directed toward us and provide Afghanistan with basic human needs, making it a safer place, reduce extremism and lawlessness, which, in turn, will make America safer, but to get there, Obama has to stop “campaigning” and start “governing,” and he has to believe that, “Yes, we can.”
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Courtesy image by Pixabay
