Obama’s New Afghanistan-Pakistan Strategy

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>
Obama orders as many as 17,500
troops to Afghanistan</font size><font size="4">

Obama's first troop deployment
to a war zone as commander in chief</font size></center>


McClatchy Newspapers
By Margaret Talev, Nancy A.
Youssef and Warren P. Strobel
Tuesday, February 17, 2009


WASHINGTON — In his first troop deployment to a war zone as commander in chief, President Barack Obama on Tuesday authorized sending as many as 17,500 additional troops to Afghanistan beginning this spring, a move that appears to mark the formal U.S. troop shift from Iraq to Afghanistan.

"There is no more solemn duty as president than the decision to deploy our armed forces into harm's way," Obama said in a statement. "I do it today mindful that the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan demands urgent attention and swift action. The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and al Qaida supports the insurgency and threatens America from its safe-haven along the Pakistani border."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered the deployment of 8,000 Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C., and 4,000 Army soldiers from Fort Lewis, Wash., defense department officials said. Approximately another 5,000 support troops are expected to receive deployment orders "at a later date," a Defense Department statement said.

The first Marines could arrive in Afghanistan by May. The Army brigade is expected to arrive by mid-summer.

There are 38,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and 146,000 in Iraq.

The magnitude of the deployments will force the military to pull troops from Iraq or give soldiers longer deployments or shorter breaks. In his statement, Obama said that he understood the deployments will place an "extraordinary strain" on the troops, but it will be possible because "we are going to responsibly drawdown our forces in Iraq."

The decision comes amid a broad review of U.S. policy in Afghanistan that isn't due for completion until just before a NATO summit in early April. Obama said the troop decision "does not pre-determine the outcome of that strategic review."

He had to make a decision before then, said a senior administration official — who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak on the record — because of the looming onset of the fighting season in Afghanistan with warmer weather, and preparations for national elections there later this year.

If the president had not acted now, "the options start to slip away," the official said.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a former prisoner of war and Obama's Republican opponent last year, said that sending more troops was long overdue but that "I believe the president must spell out for the American people what he believes victory in Afghanistan will look like and articulate a coherent strategy for achieving it."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he supported Obama's decision.

Roughly 8,000 troops will be from the II Marine Expeditionary Brigade, nearly all based out of Camp Lejeune.

Because of Afghanistan's rugged terrain, the Marines will come with their own air support. In addition, the 5th brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, a Stryker brigade of about 4,000 soldiers out of Fort Lewis also are being deployed.

The Marines and soldiers will be deployed to southern Afghanistan, where U.S. forces are expanding to take on the poppy trade there, which the Taliban use to fund it forces and obtain its weapons. Since the Taliban fell in 2001, British and Canadian forces have been in charge of that area, but recently violence there has increased, as has poppy production.

Afghanistan produces two-thirds of the world's heroin from poppies. More than 90 percent of it comes out of Helmand province where the Marines are headed. Currently, the 3rd battalion 8th Marine brigade, also from Camp Lejeune, is in that area.

Several months ago, Army Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, requested up to 30,000 additional troops — three combat brigades more and an aviation brigade and support troops. What many in the Pentagon had expected to be a routine deployment became a part of the administration's effort to shift the approach taken under President George W. Bush.

Some critics felt it was inappropriate for the military to deploy troops without a clear strategy. Others said that Obama wasn't giving troops, many who'd been preparing for Iraq, the time to train for a different mission.

The Defense Department defended the timing, however.

"This is the first time that this president has been asked to deploy large numbers of troops overseas, and it seems to me a thoughtful and deliberative approach to that decision is entirely appropriate," Gates said last week.

On the ground, troops said the shifting strategy often forced them to make decisions within their own communities on how to balance training the Afghan army and police, which Gates called the U.S. "exit ticket out of there," and securing the population.

Tom Andrews, a former Maine congressman who directs the organization Win Without War, said in a statement Tuesday that "the first principle for someone who finds himself in a hole is to stop digging.

"The U.S. policy 'hole' in Afghanistan is not of the new administration's making. But it is important for the president to consider if adding new U.S. combat forces in Afghanistan, without a new and comprehensive plan for U.S. policy there, might be digging an even bigger hole."



http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/62371.html

 

[Cruise]

Re: Obama Orders Some 17,500 Troops to Afghanistan

Add another empire to the heap in Afghanistan.

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>Obama’s New Strategy
for Afghanistan and Pakistan</font size><font size="4">

The President's plan for the increasingly troubled region
is ambitious, although his goals are more limited than Bush's</font size></center>

Flanked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, President
Obama announced a new comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Friday. (Ron
Edmonds/AP)


Christian Science Monitor
By Howard LaFranchi
Staff writer
March 27, 2009 edition


<font size="3"> - Washington

President Obama unveiled a new Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy Friday that includes new troops — beyond the 17,000 additional US soldiers the president has already ordered * new civilian development personnel, and new aid.

But the plan also for the first time sets benchmarks – or, as the president preferred to call them, “metrics” – for US involvement in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, suggesting the military engagement is not open-ended and that both the Afghan and Pakistani governments must deliver on particular objectives. Those include reining in corruption for the Afghans and closing down Al Qaeda and Taliban safe havens for the Pakistanis.

The new “comprehensive” strategy underscores how both Afghanistan, where 38,000 US troops are already on the ground, and Pakistan, a nuclear power threatened by a growing Islamic militancy, are crucial to the battle with Islamic extremism. The futures of the two countries are “inextricably linked,” Mr. Obama said.

In explaining the new strategy before an audience of military and diplomatic officials and flanked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Mr. Obama invoked the memory of the 9/11 attacks more forcefully than ever before in his young presidency.

He revisited the history of Al Qaeda planning the attacks from camps in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and he insisted that Al Qaeda is now “actively planning attacks on the United States” from “safe havens in Pakistan.” As a result, Obama says, “For the American people, this border region has become the most dangerous place in the world.”


More limited goals than Bush

Perhaps mindful that the strong reference to 9/11 might remind listeners of the former administration’s justification for and handling of two wars, Obama also pointedly declared that the US was “not blindly staying the course” in Afghanistan. <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">The new strategy is designed to “restore basic security in Afghanistan,”</SPAN> he said, <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">without reference to the lofty goals of democratization and freedom</SPAN> set by former president Bush.

The new strategy calls for 4,000 additional troops to focus on training Afghanistan’s army and police. Such training is already under way by US and NATO forces, but the addition of several thousand new trainers reflects reports from the field that the training undertaken so far is yielding results. The plan also calls for several hundred additional civilian government and development experts, while it endorses a proposal before Congress for $1.5 billion in development aid to Pakistan over each of the next five years.

Announcement of the anticipated plan is the result of a two-month inter-agency review that consulted military, diplomatic and civilian development officials and experts as well as the leaders of the two principle countries involved and NATO partners. It paves the way for discussing the new strategy with international partners next week.

Secretary Clinton will attend an international conference on Afghanistan in The Hague next Tuesday armed with the new strategy. Subsequently, Obama will take it up with NATO leaders when he attends the Alliance’s 60th anniversary summit in Strasbourg, France, next Friday. Those two events will permit Obama to underscore his point that the challenge presented by Afghanistan and Pakistan “is not simply an American problem — far from it — [but] is instead an international security challenge of the highest order.”

To support that position, Obama reminded the foreign ambassadors who attended the strategy unveiling that terrorist attacks in London, Bali, North Africa, and Kabul and Islamabad have been linked to “Al Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan.”


Situation in the region deteriorating

The new strategy reflects concerns that surfaced even before the new administration took office that the situation in both Afghanistan and Pakistan was rapidly deteriorating, in part because the US and Allied presence in Afghanistan lacked a clear objective. Dispatched during the transition between administrations to the region, Vice-President Joe Biden returned to Washington <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">“very worried” about the absence among US troops and officials of a clear idea of what they were doing</SPAN>, administration officials say.

“When this administration came into office we found a policy adrift and a lack of focus on the central challenge,” says Denis McDonough, White House deputy national security adviser for strategic communications.

The administration says<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00"> the new strategy narrows the focus of US involvement to Al Qaeda.

“Disrupting, dismantling, and defeating Al Qaeda </SPAN>– the president set down a marker that this is our goal in Afghanistan,” adds Caitlin Hayden, National Security Council director for communications.


History of foreign occupation

But the heavy emphasis on economic development and governance, while eschewing the imposition of Switzerland-level foreign standards, also reflects an understanding that the US and its allies cannot succeed if they are seen by locals to be simply serving their own interests. Foreign armies installed in Afghanistan with expressly domestic security objectives — the Soviet Army invasion of the 1990’s for example – have come to be seen as occupiers and have not fared well.

In unveiling his plan, Obama made no mention of the growing use of unmanned Predator drones to attack and kill terrorists located in Pakistan’s autonomous tribal regions. The missile attacks have stirred already strong anti-American sentiment among Pakistanis – a challenge that would surely be exacerbated if the US decides to follow through on the idea of extending the drone strikes to areas of western Pakistan under the Pakistani government’s control.

The new focused strategy is viewed as a step forward by many analysts, though some are seconding the president’s warning that the road ahead in Afghanistan and Pakistan remains perilous.

Pointing to data showing an expansion last year of Afghan territory where the Taliban holds a permanent presence to 72 percent, and significant increases in the number of suicide and roadside bombing attacks, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says almost all indicators point to a “rising threat.”

In a new report, Mr. Cordesman commends recent efforts to lay out to the American public the challenge the US faces, but says more “transparency” and honesty about the complexity of the conflict is necessary.


Critics urge more limited role

Others fault Obama’s new plan, saying more troops and more money are not the answer. Saying that “most of the greatest successes scored against Al Qaeda since 9/11 have not relied on large numbers of US troops,” Malou Innocent of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, says small-team special operations and short-term “capacity building” are a better answer. Extensive development projects, she adds, require security coverage “at a level we cannot provide.”

The president’s strategy also includes a nod towards Tehran. To emphasize his conviction that the challenges in Afghanistan and Pakistan require a regional approach, Obama announced creation of a “contact group” of countries from Central Asia, the Gulf, China, India, and notably including Iran.

Administration officials say no official invitations to join such a group have been extended, but inclusion of Iran reflects both memory of the helpful role Iran played early in the war with Afghanistan’s Taliban, and recognition that Tehran is more likely to do mischief if left outside.

</font size>

http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/03/27/obamas-strategy-for-afghanistan-and-pakistan/

 

[QueEx]

<font size="4">
Afghan president backs new US war plan </font size>

President Hamid Karzai (left) praised Obama's
plans to build up Afghanistan's army and police
and provide civilian aid to help rebuild the country.


Iran Press
Sat, 28 Mar 2009


Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomes US President Barack Obama's new
plan to fight al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in his country.

In a press conference in Kabul, President Karzai said Saturday that the new
US strategy was "better" than expected as it introduced solutions for the
worsening conflict in the war-torn country.

"This is better than we were expecting as a matter of fact. We back it,"
Karzai said, a day after President Obama redefined the mission in Afghanistan.

Obama on Friday said the US was not in Afghanistan to "control that country
or dictate its future" but to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda."

<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Karzai said the chances for success were greater because the new strategy
recognized that the war on terrorism was a regional problem. </SPAN>

The US, under former President George W. Bush, invaded Afghanistan and
removed the Taliban from power in 2001 as it sought to eliminate the
militants behind the 9/11 attacks.

More than seven years later, the insurgents are stronger than ever in
southern and eastern regions where they have established control by
providing crude government services and basic security.

Taliban and al-Qaeda militants, according to the US, have also crossed the
border into Pakistan.

President Obama claimed on Friday that the border region between
Afghanistan and Pakistan has now become "the most dangerous place in the
world" for Americans.

Obama said the "situation is increasingly perilous" in and around Afghanistan
and called for much-needed resources to be sent there -- including extra
troops and civilian personnel.

Obama also pledged to "accelerate" the training and building the Afghan army
and police force to pave the way for the eventual withdrawal of US troops
from the country.

The new review on America's most important war was also welcomed by
officials in Pakistan where President Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday hailed the US
plan and vowed to prevent Pakistan from being used by militants.

The US, meanwhile, is moving to pressure Pakistan's powerful intelligence
agency which is accused by top American officials of abetting al-Qaeda.


http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=89852&sectionid=351020403

 

[QueEx]

<font size="4">
Pakistani Prime Minister welcomes new U.S. plan for Afghanistan</font size>


China View
March 27, 2009


ISLAMABAD, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said on Friday that Pakistan welcomes the new U.S. plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"We welcome the new U.S. anti-terror strategy," said Gilani while talking to media in southern port city of Karachi, adding that the new U.S. policy is based on regional approach.

Unveiling a new U.S. strategy to defeat Taliban and al-Qaeda, U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday said that al-Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States from the safe haven inside Pakistan.

Obama said that Pakistan must be "stronger partner" in destroying al-Qaeda's safe haven. He said Pakistan would be provided assistance of 1.5 billion U.S. dollars each year for the next five years.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/27/content_11086748.htm

 

[QueEx]

Pakistan's Zardari hails US strategy reviewhttp://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSISL478252.</font size> Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday hailed a U.S. review of its strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a "positive change" because of an emphasis on economic progress as a means to combat militancy.

Zardari welcomed Obama's call for the U.S. Congress to pass a bill to give Pakistan at least $7.5 billion in fresh economic and military assistance over the next five years.

However, Zardari did not allude to comments by senior U.S. commanders to American news channels on Friday in which they suggested that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency had ties with militant groups with links to al Qaeda and the Taliban.


`

 

[Stix-N-Stonz]

Obama's biggest problem right now imo is trying to continue Bush's policies and plans. ie: the bailout. the afghan war.

i guess people don't realize that the taliban and al-queda dont NEED Afghanistan at all. Their head leadership isn't even in the country. Not in pakistan either. they're spread all over. bin-laden said back in 2001 that his plan was for america to have to spend immense amounts of money and manpower all over the world chasing ghosts. ghosts being not hardcore jihadists, but average broke poor people that will plant a mine or fire off an rpg at troops, resulting in million dollar airstrikes and attacks to kill a few guys with AKs. these people will never have been able to make it outta afghanistan, let alone into the US to kill so much as a squirrel. and his plan is working brilliantly. You cant defeat afghanistan, because there is nothing to defeat. Come home.

 

[QueEx]

i guess people don't realize that the taliban and al-queda dont NEED Afghanistan at all . . . Pakistan either . . .

And thats why they are still fighting, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Right ???

QueEx

 

[Lamarr]

As history repeats itself:

Zbigniew Brzezinski: "Regret what? That secret operation (the CIA backing of Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorists) was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it?"

Zbigniew Brzezinski: "What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?" Quoting Zbigniew Brzezinski Jan, 1998*

This is Brzezinski with Bin Laden: Brzezinski is an advisor for Obama, Stop this madness, bring those kids home. The War and the economy are related people!

 

[Panameno718]

The average American does not know about Zbigniew Brzezeinski and who he is he is one of the men behind Obama and Obama is going to carry out his policies.

As history repeats itself:

Zbigniew Brzezinski: "Regret what? That secret operation (the CIA backing of Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorists) was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it?"

Zbigniew Brzezinski: "What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?" Quoting Zbigniew Brzezinski Jan, 1998*

This is Brzezinski with Bin Laden: Brzezinski is an advisor for Obama, Stop this madness, bring those kids home. The War and the economy are related people!

 

[Lamarr]

The average American does not know about Zbigniew Brzezeinski and who he is he is one of the men behind Obama and Obama is going to carry out his policies.

Hold on, the average American didn't know about Z Big? Or his son Ian, worked as a McCain advisor while his other son, Mark worked with Obama?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200802070004

Fellaz, the "Contingency Operation Overseas" is about to accellerate!

 

[14damoney]

Re: Obama’s New Afghanistan-Pakistan Strategy




Thankyou Panameno718 and Lamarr!!!


Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou!!!!!!


I've been saying the same thing on this politics board (and everywhere else) for close to a year.


Again...














...Thankyou!!!!!

 

[Lamarr]

US pledges $1 Billion to Pakistan

Dawg, f*ck Pakistan!

from: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationwo...,6098730.story

The U.S. and Japan pledged $1 billion each to help Pakistan battle extremist violence and bolster its economy, kicking off an international donors conference Friday for the critical U.S. ally in the war on terror.

....

The conference, supported by the World Bank, is being attended by about 25 backers, including the United States, China and Saudi Arabia. A full tally of pledges is expected to be announced at the end of the meeting.

Japan's announcement of $1 billion over two years was in line with its current level of aid — it provided Pakistan with 48 billion yen ($480 million) in development assistance in 2008.

The U.S. contribution was seen as a down payment that will go toward Washington's previously announced plans to give Pakistan $1.5 billion in aid each year for the next five years. Separately, a $7.6 billion bailout has been granted by the International Monetary Fund to avert the country's most recent balance-of-payments crisis.

As part of the IMF deal, Pakistan has been asked to reduce its fiscal deficit and to tighten its monetary policy.

 

[QueEx]

The Strategic Debate Over Afghanistan

<font size="5"><center>
The Strategic Debate Over Afghanistan</font size></center>


Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
Geopolitical Weekly
By George Friedman
May 11, 2009


After U.S. airstrikes killed scores of civilians in western Afghanistan this past week, White House National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones said the United States would continue with the airstrikes and would not tie the hands of U.S. generals fighting in Afghanistan. At the same time, U.S. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus has cautioned against using tactics that undermine strategic U.S. goals in Afghanistan — raising the question of what exactly are the U.S. strategic goals in Afghanistan. A debate inside the U.S. camp has emerged over this very question, the outcome of which is likely to determine the future of the region.

On one side are President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and a substantial amount of the U.S. Army leadership. On the other side are Petraeus — the architect of U.S. strategy in Iraq after 2006 — and his staff and supporters. An Army general — even one with four stars — is unlikely to overcome a president and a defense secretary; even the five-star Gen. Douglas MacArthur couldn’t pull that off. But the Afghan debate is important, and it provides us with a sense of future U.S. strategy in the region.


<font size="3">Petraeus and U.S. Strategy in Iraq</font size>

Petraeus took over effective command of coalition forces in Iraq in 2006. Two things framed his strategy. One was the Republican defeat in the 2006 midterm congressional elections, which many saw as a referendum on the Iraq war. The second was the report by the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan group of elder statesmen (including Gates) that recommended some fundamental changes in how the war was fought.

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.


<font size="3">Afghanistan and Lessons from Iraq</font size>

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.

In the end, there is never a debate between U.S. presidents and generals. Even MacArthur discovered that. It is becoming clear that Obama is not going to bet all in Afghanistan, and that he sees Afghanistan as not worth the fight. Petraeus is a soldier in a fight, and he wants to win. But in the end, as Clausewitz said, war is an extension of politics by other means. As such, generals tend to not get their way.

Tell Stratfor what you think.


stratfor.com

 

[QueEx]

Taliban: Obama 'our foremost enemy'

<font size="5"><center>
Pakistani Taliban leader calls Obama </font size><font size="6">
'our foremost enemy'</font size></center>



McClatchy Newspapers
By Saeed Shah
August 25, 2009


<font size="3">ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan's extremist Taliban movement acknowledged Tuesday that its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, had died in the aftermath of a U.S. drone missile attack early this month and confirmed that two men would replace him. </font size>

Hakimullah Mehsud, a violent young jihadist with links to al Qaida, will be in nominal control but his rival, Waliur Rehman, will take charge of Waziristan, a vital region for the militant movement. Rehman, in a telephone interview Tuesday with reporters, threatened attacks against the West and called President Barack Obama "our foremost enemy."

The Pakistani Taliban provides sanctuary for al Qaida and the Afghan insurgents in Pakistan's lawless tribal area, and its leadership and goals will affect international forces in Afghanistan and terror plots against Western targets.

The militant group sustained heavy losses in late April following the launch of a U.S.-backed Pakistani army operation, and the death of Baitullah Mehsud appeared to leave it in disarray. Now Pakistan and the United States will be watching to see if new leadership can stabilize the Pakistani Taliban.

Both of the top contenders for the leadership said Baitullah had succumbed to his injuries Sunday, not on Aug. 5, when a U.S. missile struck a house in South Waziristan, his native region, as U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials had thought.

The admission came after weeks of denials from militants that Baitullah, who brought together 13 extremist groups in the country's northwest to form Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan in December 2007, had been eliminated.

On the surface, the power struggle to replace Baitullah appears to have been won by Hakimullah, a trigger-happy tribesman with the reputation of a thug. But his rival, Rehman, who was closer to Baitullah and is regarded as much less brutal than Hakimullah, was given charge of the all-important Waziristan region.

"The real power is in Waziristan, and Waliur Rehman will run things there," said Saifullah Mahsud, an analyst at the FATA Research Center, an independent think tank in Islamabad. "It's a clever compromise formula. Waliur Rehman has the real power."

Remote, mountainous Waziristan is a potential hiding place for Osama bin Laden and a safe haven for jihadists from around the world.

According to a tribesman in South Waziristan, who could not be named for his own safety, Hakimullah, thought to be just 28, had threatened to form a breakaway group if he wasn't given the title of leader.

"In order to avoid bloodshed, Waliur Rehman has been forced by the Afghan side to agree. He's a decent, respected guy," said the tribesman.

He added that the dispute was mediated by a representative of Mullah Omar, founder of the Afghan Taliban, and Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of veteran Afghan jihadist Jalaluddin Haqqani. The Pakistani Taliban regards its older Afghan counterpart as its mentor, and the Haqqani network in particular wields considerable influence over the Afghan branch.

Hakimullah could be the choice of al Qaida, analysts say, as he is linked closely to two terrorist groups banned in Pakistan — Sipah-e-Sahaba and its even more extreme offshoot, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi — that now take their lead from bin Laden.

Hakimullah formerly belonged to Sipah-e-Sahaba. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is regarded as a key al Qaida facilitator in Pakistan and played a role in many of the bombings and other attacks that have rocked the country over the last two years, including the assault on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team earlier this year.

Given the rivalry between Rehman, who is more popular in South Waziristan, and Hakimullah, analysts think that the power struggle could erupt again. According to an unconfirmed report, denied by the Taliban, the rivalry had led to a gun battle earlier this month in which both were injured. Until Tuesday, many were convinced that Hakimullah had died in that clash.

The pair appeared to be sitting together as they called select local journalists Tuesday evening, after the end of the Ramadan fast, as they passed the phone between them, according to one person who spoke to both.

"There are no differences between the various Taliban factions, and we are all united," Rehman told reporters from an undisclosed location.

Rehman, who has a religious education, unlike Hakimullah, hit out at the West, even threatening attacks.

"Obama is our foremost enemy and our workers are raring to face him," Rehman said. "Our workers cherish death more than the life and London, Paris and New York are not far away from them."

The Pakistani Taliban has no known capacity to mount attacks in the West.

Speaking before the announcement on the Taliban leadership, Pakistan's interior minister, Rehman Malik, was confident that the extremist movement was sinking.

"They cannot hide," Malik said. "We are close to their jugular vein. Now the people have turned against them."



http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/74341.html

 

[QueEx]

Re: Taliban: Obama 'our foremost enemy'

<font size="5"><center>
Pakistan and the U.S. Exit From Afghanistan</font size></center>

Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
(STRATFOR)
By George Friedman
September 28, 2010


<font size="3">
Bob Woodward has released another book, this one on the debate over Afghanistan strategy in the Obama administration. As all his books do, the book has riveted Washington. It reveals that intense debate occurred over what course to take, that the president sought alternative strategies and that compromises were reached. But while knowing the details of these things is interesting, what would have been shocking is if they hadn’t taken place.

It is interesting to reflect on the institutional inevitability of these disagreements. The military is involved in a war. It is institutionally and emotionally committed to victory in the theater of combat. It will demand all available resources for executing the war under way. For a soldier who has bled in that war, questioning the importance of the war is obscene. A war must be fought relentlessly and with all available means.

But while the military’s top generals and senior civilian leadership are responsible for providing the president with sound, clearheaded advice on all military matters including the highest levels of grand strategy, they are ultimately responsible for the pursuit of military objectives to which the commander-in-chief directs them. Generals must think about how to win the war they are fighting. Presidents must think about whether the war is worth fighting. The president is responsible for America’s global posture. He must consider what an unlimited commitment to a particular conflict might mean in other regions of the world where forces would be unavailable.

A president must take a more dispassionate view than his generals. He must calculate not only whether victory is possible but also the value of the victory relative to the cost. Given the nature of the war in Afghanistan, U.S. President Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus — first the U.S. Central Command chief and now the top commander in Afghanistan — had to view it differently. This is unavoidable. This is natural. And only one of the two is ultimately in charge.


<font size="4">The Nature of Guerrilla Warfare</font size>

In thinking about Afghanistan, it is essential that we begin by thinking about the nature of guerrilla warfare against an occupying force. The guerrilla lives in the country. He isn’t going anywhere else, as he has nowhere to go. By contrast, the foreigner has a place to which he can return. This is the core weakness of the occupier and the strength of the guerrilla. The former can leave and in all likelihood, his nation will survive. The guerrilla can’t. And having alternatives undermines the foreigner’s will to fight regardless of the importance of the war to him.

The strategy of the guerrilla is to make the option to withdraw more attractive. In order to do this, his strategic goal is simply to survive and fight on whatever level he can. His patience is built into who he is and what he is fighting for. The occupier’s patience is calculated against the cost of the occupation and its opportunity costs, thus, while troops are committed in this country, what is happening elsewhere?

Tactically, the guerrilla survives by being elusive. He disperses in small groups. He operates in hostile terrain. He denies the enemy intelligence on his location and capabilities. He forms political alliances with civilians who provide him supplies and intelligence on the occupation forces and misleads the occupiers about his own location. The guerrilla uses this intelligence network to decline combat on the enemy’s terms and to strike the enemy when he is least prepared. The guerrilla’s goal is not to seize and hold ground but to survive, evade and strike, imposing casualties on the occupier. Above all, the guerrilla must never form a center of gravity that, if struck, would lead to his defeat. He thus actively avoids anything that could be construed as a decisive contact.

The occupation force is normally a more conventional army. Its strength is superior firepower, resources and organization. If it knows where the guerrilla is and can strike before the guerrilla can disperse, the occupying force will defeat the guerrilla. The occupier’s problems are that his intelligence is normally inferior to that of the guerrillas; the guerrillas rarely mass in ways that permit decisive combat and normally can disperse faster than the occupier can pinpoint and deploy forces against them; and the guerrillas’ superior tactical capabilities allow them to impose a constant low rate of casualties on the occupier. Indeed, the massive amount of resources the occupier requires and the inflexibility of a military institution not solely committed to the particular theater of operations can actually work against the occupier by creating logistical vulnerabilities susceptible to guerrilla attacks and difficulty adapting at a rate sufficient to keep pace with the guerrilla. The occupation force will always win engagements, but that is never the measure of victory. If the guerrillas operate by doctrine, defeats in unplanned engagements will not undermine their basic goal of survival. While the occupier is not winning decisively, even while suffering only some casualties, he is losing. While the guerrilla is not losing decisively, even if suffering significant casualties, he is winning. Since the guerrilla is not going anywhere, he can afford far higher casualties than the occupier, who ultimately has the alternative of withdrawal.

The asymmetry of this warfare favors the guerrilla. This is particularly true when the strategic value of the war to the occupier is ambiguous, where the occupier does not possess sufficient force and patience to systematically overwhelm the guerrillas, and where either political or military constraints prevent operations against sanctuaries. This is a truth as relevant to David’s insurgency against the Philistines as it is to the U.S. experience in Vietnam or the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.

There has long been a myth about the unwillingness of Americans to absorb casualties for very long in guerrilla wars. In reality, the United States fought in Vietnam for at least seven years (depending on when you count the start and stop) and has now fought in Afghanistan for nine years. The idea that Americans can’t endure the long war has no empirical basis. What the United States has difficulty with — along with imperial and colonial powers before it — is a war in which the ability to impose one’s will on the enemy through force of arms is lacking and when it is not clear that the failure of previous years to win the war will be solved in the years ahead.

Far more relevant than casualties to whether Americans continue a war is the question of the conflict’s strategic importance, for which the president is ultimately responsible. This divides into several parts. This first is whether the United States has the ability with available force to achieve its political goals through prosecuting the war (since all war is fought for some political goal, from regime change to policy shift) and whether the force the United States is willing to dedicate suffices to achieve these goals. To address this question in Afghanistan, we have to focus on the political goal.


<font size="4">The Evolution of the U.S. Political Goal in Afghanistan</font size>

Washington’s primary goal at the initiation of the conflict was to destroy or disrupt al Qaeda in Afghanistan to protect the U.S. homeland from follow-on attacks to 9/11. But if Afghanistan were completely pacified, the threat of Islamist-fueled transnational terrorism would remain at issue because it is no longer just an issue of a single organization — al Qaeda — but a series of fragmented groups conducting operations in Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, North Africa, Somalia and elsewhere.

Today, al Qaeda is simply one manifestation of the threat of this transnational jihadist phenomenon. It is important to stop and consider al Qaeda — and the transnational jihadist phenomenon in general — in terms of guerrillas, and to think of the phenomenon as a guerrilla force in its own right operating by the very same rules on a global basis. Thus, where the Taliban apply guerrilla principles to Afghanistan, today’s transnational jihadist applies them to the Islamic world and beyond. The transnational jihadists are not leaving and are not giving up. Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, they will decline combat against larger American forces and strike vulnerable targets when they can.

There are certainly more players and more complexity to the global phenomenon than in a localized insurgency. Many governments across North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia have no interest in seeing these movements set up shop and stir up unrest in their territory. And al Qaeda’s devolution has seen frustrations as well as successes as it spreads. But the underlying principles of guerrilla warfare remain at issue. Whenever the Americans concentrate force in one area, al Qaeda disengages, disperses and regroups elsewhere and, perhaps more important, the ideology that underpins the phenomenon continues to exist. The threat will undoubtedly continue to evolve and face challenges, but in the end, it will continue to exist along the lines of the guerrilla acting against the United States.

There is another important way in which the global guerrilla analogy is apt. STRATFOR has long held that Islamist-fueled transnational terrorism does not represent a strategic, existential threat to the United States. While acts of transnational terrorism target civilians, they are not attacks — have not been and are not evolving into attacks — that endanger the territorial integrity of the United States or the way of life of the American people. They are dangerous and must be defended against, but transnational terrorism is and remains a tactical problem that for nearly a decade has been treated as if it were the pre-eminent strategic threat to the United States.

Nietzsche wrote that, “The most fundamental form of human stupidity is forgetting what we were trying to do in the first place.” The stated U.S. goal in Afghanistan was the destruction of al Qaeda. While al Qaeda as it existed in 2001 has certainly been disrupted and degraded, al Qaeda’s evolution and migration means that disrupting and degrading it — to say nothing of destroying it — can no longer be achieved by waging a war in Afghanistan. The guerrilla does not rely on a single piece of real estate (in this case Afghanistan) but rather on his ability to move seamlessly across terrain to evade decisive combat in any specific location. Islamist-fueled transnational terrorism is not centered on Afghanistan and does not need Afghanistan, so no matter how successful that war might be, it would make little difference in the larger fight against transnational jihadism.

Thus far, the United States has chosen to carry on fighting the war in Afghanistan. As al Qaeda has fled Afghanistan, the overall political goal for the United States in the country has evolved to include the creation of a democratic and uncorrupt Afghanistan. It is not clear that anyone knows how to do this, particularly given that most Afghans consider the ruling government of President Hamid Karzai — with which the United States is allied — as the heart of the corruption problem, and beyond Kabul most Afghans do not regard their way of making political and social arrangements to be corrupt.

Simply withdrawing from Afghanistan carries its own strategic and political costs, however. The strategic problem is that simply terminating the war after nine years would destabilize the Islamic world. The United States has managed to block al Qaeda’s goal of triggering a series of uprisings against existing regimes and replacing them with jihadist regimes. It did this by displaying a willingness to intervene where necessary. Of course, the idea that U.S. intervention destabilized the region raises the question of what regional stability would look like had it not intervened. The danger of withdrawal is that the network of relationships the United States created and imposed at the regime level could unravel if it withdrew. America would be seen as having lost the war, the prestige of radical Islamists and thereby the foundation of the ideology that underpins their movement would surge, and this could destabilize regimes and undermine American interests.

The political problem is domestic. Obama’s approval rating now stands at 42 percent. This is not unprecedented, but it means he is politically weak. One of the charges against him, fair or not, is that he is inherently anti-war by background and so not fully committed to the war effort. Where a Republican would face charges of being a warmonger, which would make withdrawal easier, Obama faces charges of being too soft. Since a president must maintain political support to be effective, withdrawal becomes even harder. Therefore, strategic analysis aside, the president is not going to order a complete withdrawal of all combat forces any time soon — the national (and international) political alignment won’t support such a step. At the same time, remaining in Afghanistan is unlikely to achieve any goal and leaves potential rivals like China and Russia freer rein.


<font size="4">The American Solution</font size>

The American solution, one that we suspect is already under way, is the Pakistanization of the war. By this, we do not mean extending the war into Pakistan but rather extending Pakistan into Afghanistan. The Taliban phenomenon has extended into Pakistan in ways that seriously complicate Pakistani efforts to regain their bearing in Afghanistan. It has created a major security problem for Islamabad, which, coupled with the severe deterioration of the country’s economy and now the floods, has weakened the Pakistanis’ ability to manage Afghanistan. In other words, the moment that the Pakistanis have been waiting for — American agreement and support for the Pakistanization of the war — has come at a time when the Pakistanis are not in an ideal position to capitalize on it.

In the past, the United States has endeavored to keep the Taliban in Afghanistan and the regime in Pakistan separate. (The Taliban movements in Afghanistan and Pakistan are not one and the same.) Washington has not succeeded in this regard, with the Pakistanis continuing to hedge their bets and maintain a relationship across the border. Still, U.S. opposition has been the single greatest impediment to Pakistan’s consolidation of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and abandoning this opposition leaves important avenues open for Islamabad.

The Pakistani relationship to the Taliban, which was a liability for the United States in the past, now becomes an advantage for Washington because it creates a trusted channel for meaningful communication with the Taliban. Logic suggests this channel is quite active now.

The Vietnam War ended with the Paris peace talks. Those formal talks were not where the real bargaining took place but rather where the results were ultimately confirmed. If talks are under way, a similar venue for the formal manifestation of the talks is needed — and Islamabad is as good a place as any.

Pakistan is an American ally which the United States needs, both to balance growing Chinese influence in and partnership with Pakistan, and to contain India. Pakistan needs the United States for the same reason. Meanwhile, the Taliban want to run Afghanistan. The United States has no strong national interest in how Afghanistan is run so long as it does not support and espouse transnational jihadism. But it needs its withdrawal to take place in a manner that strengthens its influence rather than weakens it, and Pakistan can provide the cover for turning a retreat into a negotiated settlement.

Pakistan has every reason to play this role. It needs the United States over the long term to balance against India. It must have a stable or relatively stable Afghanistan to secure its western frontier. It needs an end to U.S. forays into Pakistan that are destabilizing the regime. And playing this role would enhance Pakistan’s status in the Islamic world, something the United States could benefit from, too. We suspect that all sides are moving toward this end.

The United States isn’t going to defeat the Taliban. The original goal of the war is irrelevant, and the current goal is rather difficult to take seriously. Even a victory, whatever that would look like, would make little difference in the fight against transnational jihad, but a defeat could harm U.S. interests. Therefore, the United States needs a withdrawal that is not a defeat. Such a strategic shift is not without profound political complexity and difficulties. But the disparity between — and increasingly, the incompatibility of — the struggle with transnational terrorism and the war effort geographically rooted in Afghanistan is only becoming more apparent — even to the American public.

</font size>

<a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100927_pakistan_and_us_exit_afghanistan">Pakistan and the U.S. Exit From Afghanistan</a> is republished with permission of STRATFOR.