[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]
As often as not, newly elected U.S. administrations, Republican and Democrat alike, turn right around and continue some of the exact same failed policies for which they properly castigated their opponents during the campaign, or implement policies previously rejected by their predecessors for good reason.
Any man who has just been elected president of the United States probably has an inclination to think pretty highly of himself. Let’s say he looks at Iraq or Afghanistan and says to himself, “My predecessor fouled up big time in that country, but then, he was pretty stupid and did all the wrong things. I am smart, really smart and I won’t make the same mistakes that he made. So I will do it right and succeed.”
So, the new President goes ahead, as George Bush did after looking over what he and his advisors considered his father’s failed Iraq policy in the First Gulf War and as Barack Obama apparently has done after examining George Bush’s failed policy in Afghanistan. George Bush made a critical mistake in invading Iraq, one his father was smart enough to avoid. Given what he has done in the last few weeks, Barack Obama is in the process of doing the same in Afghanistan by beefing up our military commitment there.
There are some differences. The Bush White House knew it wanted to invade Iraq even before 9/11. 9/11 provided the excuse, so the White House, looking for “objective” support for its plans, bullied the intelligence community into providing analyses that supported the plan.
That is not the case with President Obama and Afghanistan. Absent presidential arrogance, the only thing that can explain upgrading the war is that it has been pushed incredibly hard by the US military establishment. Obama, after all, follows a President who said constantly he would “do what his generals recommended.” With the surge counted as a military success, Obama is stuck with the realities left behind by Bush policy. Would he be the president who “lost” the Middle East? The pressure is really on.
But that really isn’t the issue and there are a couple of points that need to be made over and over.
First, the contemporary reality of Afghanistan: Afghanistan is a very large country currently uncontrolled by its central government. Its people are brave, bellicose, fiercely proud, loyal to their clan, tribe or family, wildly independent, and have a highly developed sense of honor. They are generally corrupt, normally armed to the teeth, ready to fight and good at it, having spent millennia fighting each other and endless numbers of invaders. They see all foreigners as potential enemies and occupiers. And all of this is wildly complicated by Afghanistan’s shared ethnicity with the Pashtun people of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Second, the inescapable historical reality of Afghanistan: Greeks, Persians, Mongols, Indians, British, and Russians have all tried over the centuries to pacify Afghanistan. None has ever succeeded for any appreciable length of time. Is America prepared to join this list?
Throughout its history, the United States has been blessed with large numbers of citizen experts, who really know a great deal about the complicated realities of the Middle East. Many of those experts, as long as they are unencumbered with dreams of American Empire, which, God knows, Bush’s neocon advisors were not, have spoken unequivocally about the dangers of involvement, first in Iraq and now in Afghanistan.
What they have said about Iraq, despite the military success of the surge, is that it is not really a country, has very little hope for political reconciliation and that it will probably devolve into sectarian and ethnic conflict once the calming hand of US forces has left, irrespective of when that happens. This leaves the President with the inescapable Hobson’s choice of “staying the course”, or being tagged with the ultimate “defeat” when it all falls apart.
What our experts say further is that Iraq looks easy compared to the realities of Afghanistan and that it has always been that way.
So, we have a new administration that has committed us to deeper and longer military involvement in both Iraq and Afghanistan in the face of centuries of reality that teach us that we are highly unlikely to find ultimate success in either country, whatever definition we give to “success”.
Viable, non-military strategies do exist. It is high time to consider them as alternatives to the unpromising “long war” foisted on us by the Bush administration and apparently to be continued under President Obama.
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff.
