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.
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“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?