Con Coughlin: The U.S. Timetable Isn't Right for Afghanistan
[Mr. Coughlin is executive foreign editor of London's Daily Telegraph.]
During Barack Obama's surprise visit to Afghanistan last weekend—his first since taking office—he said that American soldiers were fighting to help Afghans "forge a hard-won peace" and that the military operation was essential to "keep America safe and secure."
But his vision contains a potentially fatal flaw. The highly optimistic time-frame Mr. Obama has set for the completion of the mission could seriously undermine the counterinsurgency strategy currently implemented by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander of NATO troops.
When Mr. Obama set out his Afghan plan at last November's West Point address, he said he intended to begin withdrawing U.S. forces in the summer of 2011. This includes the bulk of the extra 30,000 troops the president has committed to the Afghan war in support of Gen. McChrystal's "surge."
But senior Western policy makers I interviewed in Kabul—including officials responsible for prosecuting the NATO military campaign—have serious reservations about Mr. Obama's deadline. In February, American forces, working in close conjunction with their British counterparts, finally succeeded in driving the Taliban from their stronghold in Marjah, in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, from which they used to launch their deadly roadside bomb attacks against NATO forces. Now American commanders and their NATO allies are preparing for a similar offensive to clear the Taliban from Kandahar, the country's second largest city and former fief of Mullah Muhammad Omar.
But victory in Afghanistan is unlikely to be achieved by military success alone. One of the main reasons the Taliban have been able to re-establish their influence in Kandahar and the surrounding region has been the weakness and corruption that afflicts the provincial government. This government is chaired by Ahmed Wali Karzai, the Afghan president's brother. The Taliban were able to establish a stronghold in Kandahar in the 1990s because local Afghans considered the movement, with its strict adherence to Islamic law, as a welcome alternative to the venal government officials and corrupt police officers that previously administered the city. But after the U.S.-led coalition managed to overthrow the Taliban in 2001, quite a few of these corrupt leaders returned to power. As a consequence, many Kandaharis today continue to regard the Taliban as the lesser of two evils.
Deploying military force to remove the Taliban from Kandahar and their other power bases in southern Afghanistan can therefore only be the first step in the long and painstaking task of turning this benighted country into something approaching a functioning state. To enable ordinary Afghans to forge the hard-won peace that NATO's military success could deliver, the country requires a completely new security and administrative structure, one controlled by a strong and committed government in Kabul.
Senior NATO military officers are confident they can destroy most of the Taliban's terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan this year. Yet this will prove to be a Pyrrhic victory unless a viable, effective and law-abiding administrative system is established in its place. Despite the billions of dollars Washington is spending on training a new cadre of police and civil servants, these Afghans are still many years away from having the ability to run the country effectively...
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During Barack Obama's surprise visit to Afghanistan last weekend—his first since taking office—he said that American soldiers were fighting to help Afghans "forge a hard-won peace" and that the military operation was essential to "keep America safe and secure."
But his vision contains a potentially fatal flaw. The highly optimistic time-frame Mr. Obama has set for the completion of the mission could seriously undermine the counterinsurgency strategy currently implemented by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander of NATO troops.
When Mr. Obama set out his Afghan plan at last November's West Point address, he said he intended to begin withdrawing U.S. forces in the summer of 2011. This includes the bulk of the extra 30,000 troops the president has committed to the Afghan war in support of Gen. McChrystal's "surge."
But senior Western policy makers I interviewed in Kabul—including officials responsible for prosecuting the NATO military campaign—have serious reservations about Mr. Obama's deadline. In February, American forces, working in close conjunction with their British counterparts, finally succeeded in driving the Taliban from their stronghold in Marjah, in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, from which they used to launch their deadly roadside bomb attacks against NATO forces. Now American commanders and their NATO allies are preparing for a similar offensive to clear the Taliban from Kandahar, the country's second largest city and former fief of Mullah Muhammad Omar.
But victory in Afghanistan is unlikely to be achieved by military success alone. One of the main reasons the Taliban have been able to re-establish their influence in Kandahar and the surrounding region has been the weakness and corruption that afflicts the provincial government. This government is chaired by Ahmed Wali Karzai, the Afghan president's brother. The Taliban were able to establish a stronghold in Kandahar in the 1990s because local Afghans considered the movement, with its strict adherence to Islamic law, as a welcome alternative to the venal government officials and corrupt police officers that previously administered the city. But after the U.S.-led coalition managed to overthrow the Taliban in 2001, quite a few of these corrupt leaders returned to power. As a consequence, many Kandaharis today continue to regard the Taliban as the lesser of two evils.
Deploying military force to remove the Taliban from Kandahar and their other power bases in southern Afghanistan can therefore only be the first step in the long and painstaking task of turning this benighted country into something approaching a functioning state. To enable ordinary Afghans to forge the hard-won peace that NATO's military success could deliver, the country requires a completely new security and administrative structure, one controlled by a strong and committed government in Kabul.
Senior NATO military officers are confident they can destroy most of the Taliban's terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan this year. Yet this will prove to be a Pyrrhic victory unless a viable, effective and law-abiding administrative system is established in its place. Despite the billions of dollars Washington is spending on training a new cadre of police and civil servants, these Afghans are still many years away from having the ability to run the country effectively...