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The war in Afghanistan — the American war — has been under way for almost nine years. By its 10th anniversary, on Oct. 7, 2011, Operation Enduring Freedom will have proved to be an enduring operation, the longest major military effort by the United States since the Vietnam War. Launched four weeks after the 9/11 attacks, the Afghanistan campaign removed the Taliban from power and pushed al Qaeda into mountain sanctuaries on the Pakistani side of the border. This did reduce the ability of groups like al Qaeda to operate on Afghan soil, but it did not create a secure and stable Afghanistan that could no longer serve as a launch pad for terrorist attacks against the United States. Leading up to the U.S. invasion, when the world’s sole superpower demanded that the Taliban surrender al Qaeda, the Taliban refused. Although today the two groups are less intertwined, at the time the Taliban — as Islamists — could not surrender another Islamist entity they had grown close to through ideological affinity and loyalty dictated by Pashtun cultural norms. (In any case, in October of 2001, many Afghans did not believe that al Qaeda had perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, and many Muslims do not believe that to this day.) And despite American perceptions of a quick victory in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, in reality the Taliban largely declined to fight. There were battles in places like Tora Bora that resulted in significant Taliban losses, but they essentially retreated to their core turf in the south and refused to engage the U.S. war machine on American terms, returning instead to their insurgent roots. The history of Afghanistan is one of strife, and this history has done much to shape the nation the United States invaded in October 2001. Afghans are more accustomed to perpetual conflict than many cultures — certainly more than the Americans are. The Soviet occupation and war lasted for nearly a decade, throughout the 1980s, and the country quickly descended into an intra-Islamist civil war following the Soviet withdrawal. Even when the Taliban came to power they did not completely rule the country, with the Northern Alliance defying Taliban rule. Nevertheless, the Taliban can be tough and tenacious fighters, and they are working from a well-worn playbook as the United States tries to devise a new solution to a perennial problem. Indeed, after 9/11 it would have been hard enough for the United States to wage a concerted counterinsurgency against the Taliban even if it had not become so preoccupied with Iraq. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Afghanistan turned into a backwater theater in the “Global War on Terror.” It seemed that the worse things got on the ground in Iraq, the more ground the Taliban regained in Afghanistan. Only after the “Sunni awakening” and U.S. surge in Iraq in 2007 was the United States able to start drawing down its forces in Iraq and refocusing on the Afghan front, where an understrength U.S.-led coalition had been trying to contain the Taliban for years. In 2008, near the end of his presidency, George W. Bush initiated the shift in focus back to Afghanistan, appointing the architect of the Iraqi surge, U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command and putting him in charge of both wars. A year later, under new U.S. President Barack Obama, U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal was given his fourth star and command of both U.S. forces and the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Although a new strategy for Afghanistan would not be publicly announced until near the end of 2009, McChrystal, who previously had been the longest-serving commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, began to make sweeping changes that summer. Then on Dec. 1, 2009, Obama outlined the revamped strategy in a speech at West Point. The plan had three main elements: to maintain pressure on al Qaeda on the Afghan-Pakistani frontier, to turn back the mounting Taliban offensive by sending 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan and to train and build up Afghan military forces and civilian structures to assume responsibility after a U.S. withdrawal, which would begin in July 2011. With Obama’s West Point speech and the surge that followed, the war in Afghanistan entered a decisive phase. Gen. McChrystal and the ISAF had an ambitious set of goals — and about 20 months to realize some degree of progress on the ground. The U.S. objective was still to destroy al Qaeda and create a stable and secure Afghanistan, but the strategy was different. Recognizing that the Taliban were an inherent part of the country’s political landscape and could not be militarily defeated any time soon, war planners were now distinguishing between reconcilable and irreconcilable elements of the militant movement, in hopes of persuading the former to come to the negotiating table. Meanwhile, the renewed counterinsurgency would focus on key population centers and critical territory while trying to protect and win over the population rather than engaging the Taliban primarily in direct, kinetic operations. The new U.S. strategy for Afghanistan — perhaps for the first time since 2001 — defined an endgame and exit strategy. Similar to “Vietnamization” under U.S. President Richard Nixon, the Afghanistan plan also emphasized the building up of indigenous security forces and setting them up for success over the next few years, with the explicit intention of handing over responsibility for security to the Afghans. But the goals and the timeline are ambitious and the hurdles are high. The crux of the challenge is time and patience. In his West Point speech, President Obama did not elaborate on the magnitude of the U.S. withdrawal or the date when it would conclude. He made it clear that it would all depend on the situation on the ground. However, he also made it clear that the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan is finite and that there is a limit to how many U.S. lives and dollars will be spent in the legendary graveyard of empires. The Taliban, on the other hand — patient and persevering — seem to have all the time in the world. And their goals are much more directly obtainable. First they must simply survive, i.e., outlast the United States and its allies. They must also prevent the United States from undermining their support base. To these ends, they will exploit their natural strengths — guerilla warfare, tribal and filial ties with the people and a common interest in a greater role for an ultraconservative brand of Shariah (Islamic law) in the country’s governance. As with any insurgent entity, internal cohesion is an important challenge for the amorphous Taliban, but its leadership considers the movement’s position stronger today than it has been since 2001. Mullah Muhammad Omar, the most prominent leader of the Afghan Taliban, is not strictly opposed to a settlement with Kabul, but he firmly believes they can expect some serious concessions in any political reconciliation. And the ambitious goals the United States has set for itself — the destruction of al Qaeda and the stabilization of Afghanistan — cannot be achieved by coalition forces alone. The U.S. objective in Afghanistan is not the complete destruction of the Taliban’s will and ability to resist. In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, the idea is to use military force to reshape the political landscape. And the United States cannot do this without working with other countries outside of the NATO mainstream. In addition to Pakistan, which has long been involved in cultivating a jihadist militancy in the region as a hedge against Indian power, the United States must work with Iran, India, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, China and Central Asian states, all countries that have interests and/or leverage in Afghanistan. Sooner or later, of course, the Afghan people will have to decide which way they want it to go, and the ISAF has a limited amount of time to provide them the security and space to make that decision. While a 2011 deadline looms, the military campaign will likely extend beyond that. Any drawdown would begin in mid-2011 and be carefully phased, depending upon the security situation. So there will probably be a sizable American military presence in Afghanistan well into 2012, and perhaps longer. Meanwhile, the United States will be turning its attention to other global matters while the Taliban — a diffuse group of jihadists fighting on their own embattled turf — will be facing some decisions of their own. The Taliban have begun to recognize their strengths just as the Americans have recognized their limitations. It is a critical juncture in the war, and as they prepare to play the long game, the Taliban certainly have time on their side. STRATFOR Austin, Texas May 10, 2010