The NYT has published what seems to me a disturbing and ominous article about the Obama administration’s stance toward Afghanistan. The article informs us that “President Obama intends to adopt a tougher line toward Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, as part of a new American approach to Afghanistan that will put more emphasis on waging war than on development, senior administration officials said Tuesday.”
In short, the White House is distancing itself from the current president of Afghanistan and is deprioritizing aid and reconstruction in favor of increased military engagement:
The officials portrayed the approach as a departure from that of President Bush, who held videoconferences with Mr. Karzai every two weeks and sought to emphasize the American role in rebuilding Afghanistan and its civil institutions.
They said that the Obama administration would work with provincial leaders as an alternative to the central government, and that it would leave economic development and nation-building increasingly to European allies, so that American forces could focus on the fight against insurgents.
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Shortly before taking office as vice president last week, Mr. Biden traveled to Afghanistan in his role as the departing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He met with Mr. Karzai and warned him that the Obama administration would expect more of him than Mr. Bush did, administration officials said. He told Mr. Karzai that Mr. Obama would be discontinuing the video calls that Mr. Karzai enjoyed with Mr. Bush, said a senior official, who added that Mr. Obama expected Mr. Karzai to do more to crack down on corruption.
…
“If it looks like we’re abandoning the central government and focusing just on the local areas, we will run afoul of Afghan politics,” Mr. Khalilzad [an Afghan-American who is a former United States ambassador to the United Nations and is viewed as a possible challenger to Mr. Karzai] said. “Some will regard it as an effort to break up the Afghan state, which would be regarded as hostile policy.”
This article leaves me asking a few questions. Is it wise to abandon direct consultation with the president of Afghanistan at the same time that we intend to send up to three additional brigades to that country? What are the risks of “outsourcing” reconstruction and aid to our NATO allies at this crucial juncture in Afghanistan’s history? One should note that a clear majority of Europeans are resistant to Obama’s call to send more troops to Afghanistan, according to Reuters:
Most voters in leading European countries believe their governments should resist any request by incoming U.S. President Barack Obama to send more troops to Afghanistan, according to an opinion poll published on Tuesday.
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The Financial Times said 60 percent of German respondents in the survey opposed Berlin sending more troops to Afghanistan.
In Britain, the second biggest contributor to NATO’s mission in Afghanistan with more than 8,000 troops, 57 percent of those polled rejected sending more forces.
In France and Italy, 53 percent were opposed. Only in Spain was there a majority willing to consider sending extra troops, the Financial Times said.
It seems to me that if we’re going to be involved at all in Afghanistan (and Pakistan) then one of our primary mission should be to build up good relations with the civil societies of both countries — to provide aid, build infrastructure, and listen carefully to the needs of the people who are there. Our primary emphasis should be on reconstruction and genuine economic development, not warfare.
As Obama quite rightly said in his interview with Al-Arabiya: “You will be judged on what you’ve built, not what you’ve destroyed.” What exactly are we building in Afghanistan and Pakistan? How will we be judged?
The New York Times article explains the rationale for Obama’s move: “With the forces of the Taliban and Al Qaeda mounting more aggressive operations in eastern and southern Afghanistan, administration officials said they saw little option but to focus on the military campaign.”
How should the United States respond to stepped up attacks by Al Qaeda and the Taliban? With more focus on aid, infrastructure and listening? For how long? How long do we adopt that approach before we go back to fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban with guns and bombs?
Obama’s line in his speech about how judging was directed to foreign leaders, and his point was that they will be judged by their own people by what they build for their own people.
Obama’s goal in trying to defeat Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to create peace and security for them and for us. If Obama allows the Taliban and Al Qaida to grow stronger in Afghanistan, he will be judged by his own people as having abandoned his obligation to protect his own people.
You believe that if we focus on aid, infrastructure and listening, we will somehow defeat Al Qaida and the Taliban without firing a shot.
But what if you are wrong? How long do we wait? If we cease fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and simply let them run roughshod over the country, what will the effects of that be? Will it destabilize the democratic government there? At what point do we return to the fighting?
Your primary focus in this and other posts seems to be that the U.S. should worry about how we will “be judged” for waging warfare. But what about U.S. security? Doesn’t Obama have a legitimate obligation to destroy Al Qaeda?
Comment by Ian — January 28, 2009 @ 9:34 am
I wanted to say a few more things after re-reading your post.
1. We are not “abandoning direct consultation” with Karzai at a time when we intend to send up to three additional brigades to that country.”
Obama’s plan is only to end biweekly videoconferences with Karzai. This is just not the same as abandoning direct consultation. And the idea that an additional three brigades (roughly 12,000 troops) requires more face time with Karzai is just a sloppy idea. We’re already at was in Afghanistan, so why would an additional 12,000 troops necessitate biweekly videoconferences?
2. We are not ““outsourcing” reconstruction and aid to our NATO allies at this crucial juncture in Afghanistan’s history?” What is your point in referring to it as “outsourcing” when our NATO allies are asked to play a specific role in our operations in Afghanistan? The word “outsourcing” conveys a sense that we have contracted out the work to unaccountable third-parties with questionable practices and uncertain quality controls. Are you suggesting that our NATO allies cannot be counted on to do a good job? We are not “outsourcing” — we are allies in a war, and comparing the countries of Europe to Halliburton or some Indian call center is incomprehensible.
3. The survey you refer to above suggests the European voters are opposed to sending their troops to Afghanistan. It doesn’t say they are opposed to fighting the war, or opposed to the United States sending more troops. You write “one should note” that these European voters don’t want to send more of their troops to participate in an American-led effort that has dragged on for seven years. Why should “one note” this?
Exaggeration and innuendo is no substitute for a clear argument.
Comment by Ian — January 28, 2009 @ 9:57 am
I think I correctly described the article’s gist. I wrote: ”the White House is distancing itself from the current president of Afghanistan and is deprioritizing aid and reconstruction in favor of increased military engagement.”
As Obama officials put it (as paraphrased by the article): ”Obama administration would work with provincial leaders as an alternative to the central government, and that it would leave economic development and nation-building increasingly to European allies.”
1. You’re right; By “abandon,” I do not mean to imply that no member of the Obama administration will ever consult with the central government of Afghanistan ever again. Just that our government’s efforts will be focused on “alternatives” to the central government, in effect sending as signal of no confidence in the central government, I think.
2. “Outsourcing” seems a perfectly good way of describing what we’re doing. We’re giving to someone else a job we’d prefer not to do ourselves because we have other priorities. Third parties in an outsourcing arrangement are never unaccountable. Halliburton was theoretically accountable for its actions under the terms of its contract with the DoD. In fact, the situation is worse than outsourcing from the perspective of accountability in that our European allies are not contractually obliged to do what we ask them–they’re sovereign nations; we don’t rule them–and their people don’t want their troops in Afghanistan.
3. “One” should note the poll because if Obama is planning around the assumption that European countries are going to add more troops to help foster “economic development” — if that is indeed what our troops have been doing instead of hunting al-Qaeda, which is implicit in the very idea of a shift — then we may find that we’ve planned around a set of troops who will never arrive.
In short, I see what I regard as a “disturbing and ominous” pattern in the way we’re talking about Afghanistan and Pakistan: our emphasis is on the military at the expense of humanitarian and social assistance. There are various reasons to be concerned about this move — some of which I’ve already discussed in this and previous posts — some of which I’ll hopefully outline in future posts.
Comment by Lee — January 28, 2009 @ 2:25 pm
I agree that you correctly described the article’s gist. What you didn’t do is explain why the article is “disturbing and ominous.”
You write, “What are the risks of “outsourcing” reconstruction and aid to our NATO allies at this crucial juncture in Afghanistan’s history?”
Here’s my answer. There are no risks whatsoever. Absolutely zero risks. I trust our NATO allies that they will do as good a job as can be done. Do you agree? Do you believe our NATO allies cannot be trusted to do the job? Do you have any evidence whatsoever to support your assertion that our NATO allies can’t be trusted? The idea that they won’t do a good job because the people in their countries don’t want to spend additional troops just doesn’t make sense.
We also have no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Obama is counting on more NATO troops, that he has “planned around a set of troops who will never arrive.” Furthermore, the idea is ridiculous: Obama would not seek to implement a plan requiring more additional troops from our European allies without consulting our European allies first.
You say it is “disturbing and ominous” that Obama’s emphasis is on the military at the expense of humanitarian and social assistance.
I will repeat what I wrote above, “You believe that if we focus on aid, infrastructure and listening, we will somehow defeat Al Qaida and the Taliban without firing a shot.
“But what if you are wrong? How long do we wait? If we cease fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and simply let them run roughshod over the country, what will the effects of that be? Will it destabilize the democratic government there? At what point do we return to the fighting?”
These are questions that need to be answered, or else your whole argument falls apart. Because if we don’t fight now, and the situation worsens, and we are forced to fight more intensely later on, it will be a tragedy.
Comment by Ian — January 28, 2009 @ 4:14 pm
Interestingly, Obama press spokesperson Robert Gibbs is calling the NYT article erroneous.
The main point of the article is based exclusively on quotes from anonymous “senior administration officials” and “aides.” The Times does NOT include a sentence explaining why these “senior administration officials” and “aides” are unwilling to identify themselves. Do these officials and aides include Obama? Rahm Emannuelle? Bob Gates? Hillary Clinton? I’m prepared to believe the article is basically false.
Comment by Ian — January 28, 2009 @ 9:54 pm
I don’t know if we should accept that the article is false just yet. Gibbs did say that he believed that the article contained “erroneous reporting” but did not offer any specifics about which aspects of the article were erronious. Which claims are erronious? The bit about Karzai–and the move away from the central government? The expectation that Europe would handle economic development? Helen Cooper told Politico: “I feel very comfortable with the story as it stands. We stand by it.” Let’s see what happens on the ground.
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As for your statement above–”You believe that if we focus on aid, infrastructure and listening, we will somehow defeat Al Qaida and the Taliban without firing a shot”–I think that it contains a misreading of the situation. I suspect that the Taliban has only gained from our activities in the region–our bombing in the FATA region and Afghanistan; I’m looking for documentation I’ve previously read that supports this hunch and will post here when I do.
My belief is not that we can defeat the Taliban by providing aid. It’s that we can’t defeat the Taliaban, period, any more than we can defeat the Vietnamese people. The only people who can “defeat” the Taliban are the Afghan people. They will be able to do so if they can offer a meaningful and better alternative to rule by the Taliban. I’m doing more research on this question and may follow up here or in a new post.
Comment by Lee — January 29, 2009 @ 1:04 am