The theory of the schedule for American troop withdrawal from
Afghanistan has been based on the time necessary for the recruiting
and training of the Afghan National Army and National Police. This
Afghan Security Force was intended to replace the U.S. and its
coalition partners dubbed International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF) in maintaining security throughout Afghanistan to counter
the return to power of the Taliban. Victory would be declared and
the Americans and their friends would depart.
It appears that the Taliban — in its several command components
— is expected to carry on its now limited insurgency tactics
through to the announced departure date of sometime toward the end
of 2014. To satisfy the desires of the Washington political
leadership, the American military has shown a willingness to
pretend that such a timetable is going to produce the result
desired. It’s implied that a token force of training advisors and a
cadre of special operations personnel will remain behind to pursue
limited missions.
Unfortunately, creating a national army from a base of
volunteers from various tribal, political, and even cultural
backgrounds is not easily accomplished except by the
counterproductive method of separating the various elements by
ethnicity and similar variants. Unit cohesiveness is particularly
hard to develop and maintain, but there is no easy alternative. The
Pentagon hasn’t been able to approach the eventual withdrawal from
Afghanistan any differently since the matter first was introduced
during the Bush Administration.
President Obama set forth on March 27, 2009 what he referred to
as a “new strategy’ to successfully win the war in Afghanistan.
This included a 30,000+ surge of forces that would have the “core
goal of the U.S…to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and its
safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent their return to Pakistan or
Afghanistan.” That this same figure of an additional thirty
thousand troops was part of a Centcom plan to reinforce Afghan
operations capability at least a year earlier was completely
ignored.
After an extensive assessment, the newly appointed head of ISAF
in June’09, General Stanley McChrystal, urged approval of the
assessment report that established an Afghan Security Force
including 240,000 army troops and 160,000 national police.
Unnoticed or simply not commented on was that this total number was
close to the 400,000-500,000 that had been suggested publicly by
Hamid Karzai also more than a year earlier. Karzai had been pushing
for a greatly enlarged Afghan army to replace U.S. and British
forces for quite some time.
The “plan” now became the “Obama Plan” even as McChrystal was
forced to resign because of injudicious remarks made by some of his
staff regarding their view of the limited capacity of the current
White House. As 2011 rolled around and the activity for a second
presidential term picked up, the Obama Plan came to include the now
accepted 2014 departure for all combat elements of the
American-dominated ISAF.
The problem is that the Taliban can happily await the foreign
pull-out with harassing attacks, both small unit and individual
assassinations “green-on-blue.” The Afghan National Army and the
National Police meanwhile show only a modest ability of approaching
the cohesion and commitment required to counter what undoubtedly
will be a major Taliban effort politically and militarily to return
to power. Of course the expected friendly relationship between
Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the various
Taliban leaders now and after 2014 is accepted as a given in
intelligence circles.
Having accepted personal credit for the killing of Osama bin
Laden — disregarding a concerted multi-organizational covert
operation to do so extending through three presidential terms —
President Obama and his administration appear to intend to complete
their “plan” for Afghanistan by successfully withdrawing in 2014,
if they are still in office. Historians, however, will record — as
did the former British special envoy (2007-2010) to Afghanistan and
Pakistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles — that the war against the
Taliban was always unwinnable in the traditional sense. It
comprised a broad Pushtun tribal insurgency encompassing all of
southeastern Afghanistan with allies countrywide. Protected by
their northern tribal cousins in Pakistan along with sanctuary
guaranteed by a special section of Pakistan’s intelligence (S-Wing
of ISI), the various elements of the Taliban have had a uniquely
secure fighting environment.
The best that can be hoped for in the pursuance of the Obama
plan of building an Afghan army to allow U.S. and ISAF’s departure
is that stalemate military conditions will allow a political
solution. At least that’s what the Pakistani strategists calculate.
Of course President Karzai’s continued political existence — to
say nothing of his life — is in serious jeopardy. He knows that
and will be quick to head to the U.S., Europe, or his old school
friends in India at the first possible occasion.
The Taliban already is negotiating among itself regarding the
division of future key government posts. How do we know this?
Pakistan’s ISI has told us so. And it should know because it
intends to ensure that any new Taliban-controlled government in
Kabul is in tune with Islamabad’s interests. No one should be
surprised. It’s the way of the region. The only question is whether
President Obama knows this — or cares?
Perhaps the most appropriate comment on any plan for Afghanistan
was made by a purposely unidentified Special Forces trooper on his
return to Ft. Bragg after his third Afghan tour: “Maybe next time
they’ll figure out what the hell they want us to win.”
