Article
Running out of time in Afghanistan
As rows over troops deepen, General McChrystal's advice to Obama aims to avoid more mistakes and inspire decisive action
In his blunt and now not so confidential advice to Barack Obama, General Stanley McChrystal has undertaken probably the most dangerous mission of his daredevil career: speaking truth to power. All recent signs from the White House suggest the US president doesn't want to hear what his Afghanistan commander insists on telling him. Obama's choice, according to McChrystal, a former special forces commander, boils down to this: Escalate or evacuate, get on or get out; there is no middle way that does not invite calamity on a grand scale.
Usually sure-footed, cautious Obama has already made mistakes on Afghanistan that will affect the way he responds. He defines the conflict as "a war of necessity", suggesting it is crucial for the safety of America's streets. As in Britain, most Americans do not buy this argument. They see the body-bags come home, they read of Afghan corruption and egregious electoral fraud, they watch a spreading insurgency united by hatred of foreign occupation – and they conclude it's a mug's game.
Early in his presidency, Obama sent 21,000 additional soldiers and trainers even as he ordered a strategy review and contemplated a change of command. That hasty move was at odds with his view, expressed in weekend interviews, that "you don't make decisions about resources before you have the strategy ready". After last month's polls, Obama prematurely welcomed "what appears to be a successful election" and said US forces should focus on "finishing the job". His comments smacked of the poor judgment and wishful thinking that has long characterised Afghan policy.
McChrystal's assessment aims to avoid more mistakes and self-deceptions of this nature. It is brutally honest. "Inadequate resources will likely result in failure. However, without a new strategy, the mission should not be resourced," he says. "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near term (the next 12 months) – while Afghan security capacity matures – risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible."
McChrystal believes the situation can be redeemed. But he is scathing about the current performance of US and Nato forces and President Hamid Karzai's government. Western troops should prioritise civilian protection, he says. Instead, "preoccupied with protection of our own forces, we have operated in a manner that distances us – physically and psychologically – from the people we seek to protect". The international force had not mastered even the "basics" of counter-insurgency. Official corruption, abuse of power and weakness of state institutions "have given Afghans little reason to support their government".
Although he has yet to make a formal request, McChrystal is expected to ask for a super-surge of roughly 30,000 US troops and trainers plus additional Nato forces. That would take total US forces to more than 100,000. His view is in line with that of Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who has repeatedly warned of an urgent need to address a "deteriorating" situation. If Obama turns refuses to heed such strongly stated advice, one or both men feel obliged to resign.
Obama will try hard to avoid such an outcome. It would inevitably raise questions about his fitness as commander-in-chief and might exacerbate other White House-Pentagon tensions, such as those over Obama's plan to slash the US nuclear stockpile. Today's leaking of McChrystal's assessment suggests the Pentagon is trying to force the White House's hand and is pushing back against congressional Democrats opposed to an Afghan escalation. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate armed services committee, both say there is insufficient support in Congress and the country for greater involvement. The generals are egged on meanwhile by Obama's defeated rival John McCain and conservative Republicans.
The pressure on Obama to do more in Afghanistan translates into pressure on America's allies to follow suit. Having previously refused to increase Britain's contingent, Gordon Brown is now expected to reverse his position. Other European leaders may prove less amenable. Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, defended its participation following criticism of a mishandled air attack in Kunduz that killed many civilians. But German public opinion strongly favours withdrawal; that will not change whoever wins this Sunday's federal elections. Similar sentiments are apparent in Italy, appalled by a recent suicide bombing that killed six of its soldiers. Obama may have more luck with France and Australia. But Canada and the Netherlands are leaving.
However inadequate or otherwise the allies' response, the likely upshot is that some time later this autumn, Obama will accept McChrystal's overall assessment and an argument will begin about exactly how many US troops should be sent, which parts of Afghanistan they should go to and what they should do. All the same, deepening disagreement across the US political spectrum about the wisdom and conduct of Afghan policy, discord that increasingly mirrors European scepticism, suggests Obama has a very limited window of opportunity, politically and militarily, to retrieve the situation.
McChrystal knows it. And the Taliban knows it too. If the tide has not turned decisively 12 months from now, it will be time to admit defeat and come home.
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User Comments
MeandYou
21 September 2009 4:54PM
We may just talk ourselves into defeat in Afganistan. Certainly there are two options available to us in Afganistan: A) Defeat the terrorists we know that are there. B) Fenced off Afganistan and Pakistan for we know these two countries is the training bases of terrorists.
phco
21 September 2009 5:01PM
It gets more pathetic and pitiful by the day.
The problem seems to be with the kind of politicians we now have:
- either "professional politicians" who got into politics early in life without finding what the essence of life is all about, their highest calling "to be elected"
- or business mentalities who only understand buying and selling, and our local profit, and who have "business rules" to ignore the character of whoever they "do business with" - because "business is business" at some higher plane than the ordinary morality of human affairs calls for.
Whatever the result seems to be that:
They cannot find a good reason for us to be in Afghanistan.
They cannot comprehend the EVERYDAY thinking, mentality and needs of the Afghan people.
They try to do everything at minimum, surgical cost.
They haven't the guts, morality, or intellectual ability to scream blue bloody murder at the governments of Afghanistan (or Iraq either) for their willful corruption, theft, electoral embezzlement and blatant oppression of sections of their societies (mostly their women).
They all seem to have the Bush family curse of "what's this vision thing" - life being reduced to the morals and rituals of business - and political platitudes. Does anyone grasp anymore that the world out there is made of souls.
No wonder the majorities for a fast exit from Afghanistan are rising everywhere.
Is it all going to end in a whimper? - and a plea to elect them once again.
jenny5
21 September 2009 5:05PM
If the general is so scathing about Nato's contribution, let the USA work on their own.
I would bet money that most of the contributing countries of Nato would want their troops back asap, from this unwinnable and pointless war.
lalibella
21 September 2009 5:17PM
It has always been a lie. How do you emerge victorious in Afghanistan ? The war has been largely a matter of chasing the Taliban into the mountains where US forces cannot follow, and the Taliban waiting for US forces to move off before they come down again. In addition, the increasing massacre by the US of Afghan civilians, has blurred the dividing line between them and the Taliban. What Obama or Brown calls the "Taliban" is an ever-increasing alliance of Taliban, opponents of the occupation, and various war lord allies. Obama did exactly what Bush did: stereotype the "enemy" against which the US is fighting, as comic-strip bad guys. In reality, the US is increasingly fighting the Afghan population, especially in areas not under US direct control.
So what does victory consist of ? Killing enough members of the Taliban so that they are incapable of reconstituting their attacks ? If the people Obama is fighting were a tiny sect (like the Tamil Tigers) confined purely to Afghanistan, then this silly idea of victory might be at least theoretically conceivable. But they are not. The US has achieved almost nothing. It has placed a corrupt stooge in power, failed to hold elections that are credible, provided the enemy with new recruits and arms through the training that has occurred, which has resulted in massive desertion.
The other big lie is that this is a NATO, international operation. NATO is a badge stuck on the outside of a fully American operation. Even the British are a tiny contingent, and plays no role in determining strategy. NATO is a cover-your-bum way of eventually trying to escape the realisation that this war never had any prospect of victory. So what will Obama do ? Another surge ? Just like Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, Obama will give into the thoroughly unimaginative and incompetent General Stanley McChrystal, another gum-chewing American general with ant gonads for brains, and keep sending more and more forces, until the retreat becomes so humiliating, it will confirm that the US is a nation of adolescents incapable of understanding the real world beyond its borders.
Whitt
21 September 2009 5:18PM
"Although he has yet to make a formal request, McChrystal is expected to ask for a super-surge of roughly 30,000 US troops and trainers plus additional Nato forces. That would take total US forces to more than 100,000. His view is in line with that of Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who has repeatedly warned of an urgent need to address a "deteriorating" situation. If Obama turns refuses to heed such strongly stated advice, one or both men feel obliged to resign." - SimonTisdall
*
Unfortunately, I think that this will ultimately become their choice. In spite of General MChrystal's dire warning, Because of the growing unpopularity of the war, the reluctance to commit the needed numbers of troops and the even greater reluctance to provide the kind of financial support Afghanistant would require to make a difference in the basic needs of the people that the corrupt and inept Afghan government has failed to provide for, Obama and Congress will almost certainly continue to dither. There is no political will in either party to substantially ramp up troop numbers or to pull out. So we will continue with what amounts to our current policy: make a token increase, maybe announce a new commander for the effort, and pray for a miracle.
In this light, one can only hope that General McChrystal and Admiral Mullen will have the moral fortitude to refuse to continue in this futile mode that ultimately wastes our troops' lives and efforts and resign in protest against a failed policy and a failed war.
RichardChickenHeart
21 September 2009 5:22PM
Mr tisdall
McChrystal believes the situation can be redeemed.
Stuff and nonsense. Neither the General nor any other knowledgeable person believes that the "situation can be redeemed"; the weasel wording that you chose indicates that you, too, know better.
If you actually believed that there is a possibility of a good outcome you would say so in plain English. A good outcome is a combination of at least some of these:
-the establishment of a reasonably efficient and honest govt in Kabul.
-the establishment on a govt in Kabul that can be depended upon by the West to suppress opium production or prevent foreign jihadists from establishing bases in Afghanistan
-the neutralisation of the Pashtuns as a dominant military or political faction.
-the effective policing of the Afghan-Pakistn border area by the two governments
-the establishment of effective central govt control over all of Afghanistan, with the warlords emasculated.
We have heard the moral arguments for the war ad nauseam. Unfortunately, once combat starts the determinant of victory changes. It is no longer the cause of the fight, it becomes the ability and will to fight till the other side collapses. An extra 30 000 men will not gain that for NATO.
GrumpyWelshGit
21 September 2009 5:24PM
@MeandYou
The terrorists that we know are there, are large numbers of heavily armed British and Americans, on the ground and in the air. They cause the deaths of many innocent and unsuspecting Afghan civilians.
MartynInEurope
21 September 2009 5:27PM
Being an ally doesn't mean you willingly jump off a cliff to your death with your mates. If your allies have irredeemable suicidal tendencies - as it 'appens - then try and talk them out of it. However, there is no obligation to follow them down the yellow shit road to the crock of crap at the end of the rainbow of hades.
halgeel84
21 September 2009 5:47PM
McChrystal's call for new troops to Afghanistan, on top of close 70,00 mercenary, thousands of U.S and NATO troops, thousands more CIA agents and equipment- all in the service of subduing Afghanistan- shows extent to which the Eurasia is central to the United States energy and geopolitical objectives. However, I am convinced it will fail.
cognoscenti
21 September 2009 5:56PM
Another Bush quagmire to be avoided. Beating fundamentalist islamic terrorists in Afghanistan, in the long term, will be about intelligence work, and giving the Afghans something to do that is more valuable to them (which is why opium cultivation exists in that vacuum.) No military victory is available. And it never will be.
The original premise was that Osama bin Laden was "hosted" there by the Taliban (this also on the shaky premise that he was responsible for 9-11.) Having failed to capture him - and the likelihood that if he is still alive he is now in Pakistan - there is no reason to remain in Afghanistan, at least on a military basis. Cheaper by far would be paying the Afghans more than the cost of opium, to produce something else that grows in the same conditions. And selling subsidised school materials for them to spend the cash they earn. That alongside an effective intelligence network which includes the madrasses of Northern Pakistan, is all that the NATO countries should really be doing, and will be significantly cheaper, far more effective, and would not cost any infantry lives.
In a manipulated market like this, if the Taliban were to try to take control over areas held by the Pashtun, they would likely be rejected and fought against to keep the "nice earner" the Pashtun would lose by letting the Taliban in.
So lets end all talk of a "surge" now, when in a hole one should stop digging.
ngavc
21 September 2009 6:17PM
A CIFer I agree with. You even spoke respectfully of General Stanley McChrystal. Afghanistan lacks strategic or economic importance. Let's fight the war on terror with intelligence, special forces and tactical bombing. The US left did get overly attached to the Afghan war to spite GWB, but terrorists can train in a field or home anywhere. Pacifying this country is a poor use of resources.
halgeel84
21 September 2009 6:20PM
cognoscenti
If the United States wishes to confront intolerant fundamentalism, it should so by confronting Saudi Arabia. we also know that the United States and NATO war in Afghanistan is not about ending fundamentalism. 8 years ago it was about capturing Osama Bin Laden, dead of alive! Today it is about ending Islamic fundamentalism. Like nuclear weapons, democracy, this is an empty category which is used against enemies of the United States not against its friends.
It is an opened concept and I cannot see how intelligence service be more helpful in Afghanistan but that it not could be used inside Saudi Arabia where the United States and NATO have freer access to end activities of reactionary groups. But we know this is about energy and geopolitical positioning, not Islamic radicalism.
halgeel84
21 September 2009 6:25PM
Pacifying this country is a poor use of resources.
pacifying- which is an Orwellian way of saying killing masses of people is also utterly evil and morally bankrupt.
Afgano
21 September 2009 6:28PM
GrumpyWelshGit
@MeandYou
The terrorists that we know are there, are large numbers of heavily armed British and Americans, on the ground and in the air. They cause the deaths of many innocent and unsuspecting Afghan civilians.
My friend, it's a mere waste of time to talk to such people who believe that throwing in a line or two from the standard propaganda is the sum total of the thing they carry on their shoulders!
If we didn't have any such things in our world we might have had some peace.
Erdington
21 September 2009 6:34PM
It is all looking more like Vietnam as time goes by, and we all know what a smashing success that was.
The current policy seems to be " when you are in a hole dig deeper"
It is high time we declare "victory" and leave before more lives are wasted.
brianboru1014
21 September 2009 6:45PM
Stanley McChrystal is a boy who never grew to be a man. He is obsessed with wars and war strategies. If he wasn't a soldier, what would he do for a living? Maybe he would become a US politician and join the brigade that create wars simply for political gain as has been the case with the American political class since it's foundation.
Every stupid war that America starts becomes a political tool almost from the get -go. Obama will take his advice from the US army as all presidents before him have done. He doesn't have the guts to stop this because he is after all a politician, a quintessential politician who wants to stay in power. What Obama wants now is a second term. Keeping an unwinnable war going will not hurt his chances.
lovemymod
21 September 2009 6:52PM
McChrystal believes the situation can be redeemed.
redemption is for sinners - for warriors it is either victory of defeat.
Tacty
21 September 2009 7:00PM
blah, blah, blah...
at the end of the day options are very limited: the US can leave, and negotiate with whatever government is left standing about the pipelines, or kill every Afghan left standing.
There is no middle solutions here.
robjmckinney
21 September 2009 7:16PM
Vietnam all over again if we send more troops, the only difference today is the Yanks got us Brits involved!
It was a lost cause at the start, the only real option is to arm the other factions and let them fight amongst themselves. The terrorist threat was always distraction and the Afghan people have never been a treat to the West. Pakistan is another case to question, where this could could lead to blood on our streets. The one bonus is that India would be at threat by any instability brought by the Taliban, so they would be forced to act, keeping the problem local.
The Afghan have always been dealt a poor hand by the West and other invaders so there is no great harm done when we cut and run!
Nullius
21 September 2009 4:49PM
The US could put in a million men, and rig as many elections as they want, the end result will be the same. It's a lost cause. Ann Jones has the dreary details here.