A Tale of Two Bureaus
Two cities, two theaters of war. It’s the remarkable difference illustrated by two news reports tonight from one news agency. The first, from Washington, describes the increasingly imaginary war theater that seems to exist in the collective mind of the Obama administration. It’s captured here by the AP’s Jennifer Loven:
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is prepared to accept some Taliban involvement in Afghanistan’s political future and will determine how many more U.S. troops to send to the war based only on keeping al-Qaida at bay, a senior administration official said Thursday.
The sharpened focus by Obama’s team on fighting al-Qaida above all other goals, while downgrading the emphasis on the Taliban, comes in the midst of an intensely debated administration review of the increasingly unpopular war.
Side note: It’s fascinating to watch the verbiage evolve. This war is “increasingly unpopular.” The last one, you’ll recall, was “deeply unpopular.” There is a lot more that could be said about the way Loven and others characterized Bush’s war strategizing during the surge period. Suffice it to say there’s less eye-rolling and eyebrow arching this time.
The article goes on to note that McChrystal is probably screwed with regard to his troop request, and then says:
Obama’s developing strategy on the Taliban will “not tolerate their return to power,” the senior official said in an interview with The Associated Press. But the U.S. would fight only to keep the Taliban from retaking control of Afghanistan’s central government - something it is now far from being capable of - and from giving renewed sanctuary in Afghanistan to al-Qaida, the official said.
The official is involved in the discussions and was authorized to speak about them but not to be identified by name because the review is still under way.
Bowing to the reality that the Taliban is too ingrained in Afghanistan’s culture to be entirely defeated, the administration is prepared to accept some Taliban role in parts of Afghanistan, the official said. That could mean paving the way for Taliban members willing to renounce violence to participate in a central government - the kind of peace talks advocated by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to little receptiveness from the Taliban. It might even mean ceding some regions of the country to the Taliban.
The “bowing to the reality” part is interesting. Obviously a lot, though not all of the Taliban fighters and leadership in Afghanistan are Afghans. Eventually there will have to be some kind of accommodation with those who are not killed. Afghans are themselves no strangers to bowing to reality or shaping it to suit their purposes as the situation allows and demands, after all. The Obama admin’s leaked readiness to cede and bow, at what is practically the start of their own involvement, indicates that calculations are now being made about the viability of abandoning large parts of Afghanistan, and essentially fight a rearguard action to keep the Taliban out of the rest while trying to cut a deal. Good luck with that. It really is like he’s trying to set up his own Vietnam, circa 1972-75.
OK, the other big Afghan article out of the AP tonight describes an entirely different reality, and doesn’t seem to suggest that bowing to it is going to work. Robert H. Reid in the Kabul bureau in One War, Two Fronts talks about one big, multi-faceted and highly volatile theater of war.
The suicide attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul on Thursday lays bare the reality that this conflict is a single war with multiple fronts that extend from Afghan battlefields to Pakistan’s fractured political scene and include the vital interests of India and the United States.
The bomber detonated an explosives-packed SUV near the outer perimeter wall of the Indian Embassy compound, killing at least 17 people — all Afghans — and wounding nearly 80 others including three Indian security guards. The Taliban claimed responsibility.
International efforts to end Afghanistan’s violence are complicated because the major players see their interests differently. The U.S. goal is to prevent al-Qaida from regaining its bases in Afghanistan, where it trained militants and plotted the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.
Pakistan, with archrival India to the east, believes it needs a friendly government in Afghanistan on its western border, preferably one without close ties to the Indians. For its part, India seeks regional allies and access to oil- and gas-rich central Asia.
As the war enters its ninth year, President Barack Obama is considering whether to focus the fight in Afghanistan against al-Qaida’s allies in the Taliban or shift to more missile strikes and special operations raids against al-Qaida in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country where the terror movement’s leadership is believed hiding.
Whatever option Obama chooses, the administration must wrestle with the fact that neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan can be secure as long as instability plagues the other. Militants move freely from one country to another, sheltering among the ethnic Pashtun community that lives on both sides of the border.
Pakistani tribesmen loosely allied with the Afghan Taliban have ambushed convoys carrying supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan. Last spring, Pakistani Taliban moved into a district only 60 miles from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, raising alarm until Pakistan’s military drove them back weeks later.
“A valid Afghan strategy cannot be separate from what happens in Pakistan,” former Pentagon analyst Anthony Cordesman said. “At the same time, it is clear that Afghanistan’s future will play a critical role in defining Pakistan’s security.”
India too is at risk from Muslim extremist groups nurtured over the years by the Pakistani military to fight the Indians in Kashmir, a mountainous region straddling both countries and claimed by each.
The risks were highlighted Thursday in the Indian embassy attack.
It is actually a pretty good quick-and-dirty summation of the complexity of the situation, and coming at this time, shows remarkable clarity, praise I don’t hand the AP or Reid easily. It doesn’t offer any easy answers, but doesn’t need to. Instead, without saying as much, it simply illustrates how shortsighted the desperate search for an easy answer now underway in Washington DC is.
UPDATE: Great news! Never mind all that. The war’s over. It’s Peace In Our Time!
Someone get the memo to Iran, please.
Topics: Afghanistan, Obama, media
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:30 pm on Thursday, October 8, 2009
3 Responses to “A Tale of Two Bureaus”
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October 9th, 2009 at 8:03 am
The biggest difference I see in current reporting on Pakistan & Afghanistan is that everything used to be the President’s fault. Somehow since January that has been replaced with a new respect for uncontrollable events and independent actions by our enemies and allies. It’s no surprise that this would lead to more informative articles.
October 9th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Nostalgia for Viet Nam
Our efforts in Afghanistan are beginning to hint at a re-run of Viet Nam for the Left in this country. Viet Nam was the Left’s definition of the “bad war.” According to the Left’s version of history, it was a war against “freedom fighting” anti-imperialists in the North versus American support of a corrupt military dictatorship in the South, all for the purpose of enforcing American hegemony throughout the world. The government we were supporting was corrupt, our soldiers were blood crazed killers who raped, pillaged and plundered as a matter of policy. We dealt death indiscriminately from the air when we were not dealing it retail on the ground. We could not win and had no business being there even if we could. In the war between democracy and communism, the Left chose Communism because it opposed American success, our culture and our economic system.
In firm control of Congress and the White House, the desire to humble America is again ascendant. It may be too late to lose Iraq – although never say die – but America’s effort in Afghanistan can still be thwarted.
Already we have a very similar cast of characters. Afghanistan’s government and elections have been deemed corrupt. America’s military efforts have produced civilian casualties which, with the right publicity can be blown up into war crimes. We are attempting to impose a lifestyle which is not compatible with some local mores – such as supporting the rights of women. Our casualties are growing and every death builds the case of our withdrawal. In the end the argument shall be that imposing American sensibilities on Afghanistan is not worth the blood of one more American soldier.
In the end a Democrat congress and President may well decree our efforts are in vain, will cut off funding, and leave the Afghans to their own devices. Worse, they may do this after several more years of futile stalemate in an effort to neither lose nor win. The subsequent bloodshed, the re-creation of a safe haven for Islamofascism, the fate of the women and children will be collateral damage that won’t be spoken of. And someone will propose a marble tombstone for vain deaths that the Left will use to preen its moral superiority as it seeks another Viet Nam.
October 9th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
And then, Moneyrunner, America will have to take in hordes of Afghan and Pakistani refugees.