Desperate surge

U.S. soldiers on patrol in Arghandab district in Kandahar province.-OMAR SOBHANI /REUTERS

PRESIDENT Barack Obamas December 1 speech announcing a sharp escalation of the war in Afghanistan is the ultimate proof that his presidency has become subservient to the conservative political and security establishment in the United States. Obama, who was elected on a non-war platform, has transformed himself into a war President in the mould of his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush.

Obama chose the American military academy at West Point, New York, to make the point. In a nationally televised speech, he said that 30,000 additional troops would be deployed in Afghanistan in the next six months. The announcement came just two weeks before he was to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

In his speech, the President said that his governments goal was to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future. He barely mentioned the Taliban. The focus was on Al Qaeda, though American intelligence officials themselves have said that there are fewer than 100 Al Qaeda fighters left in Afghanistan. Obamas National Security Adviser, Jim Jones, put the number at fewer than a hundred in an interview with CNN. Obama sought to resurrect the spectre of September 11 to plead for national unity. An implicit message in his speech was that the Americans were occupying Afghanistan to protect the homeland and not ordinary Afghans from terrorism.

The President said that the troop surge was for a vital national interest and added that attacks against the U.S. are being planned as I speak. Obamas language is becoming strikingly similar to that of Bush. Hawks such as Senator John McCain were among the first to welcome the troop escalation. The President had initially wavered on the Pentagons request for a dramatic surge. General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, had asked for 40,000 additional troops and had aggressively lobbied for the troop surge.

The White House was initially upset with the Pentagons efforts, led by Gen. McChrystal, to pressure the President to take an early decision on the troop surge. Many of the Presidents close advisers even questioned the rationale of additional troop deployments. They told the media in October that the goals of the Taliban and Al Qaeda were no longer the same. Senior White House aides said that with an unpopular government in Kabul, counter-insurgency alone was not enough to pacify the nation. Obama had said less than two months ago that it was wrong to assume that by sending more troops, were automatically going to make America safe.

Gen. McChrystal, speaking on behalf of the powerful U.S. security establishment, responded in a speech at the Institute of Strategic Studies in London on October 1 that a successful Taliban in Afghanistan would provide the sanctuary from which Al Qaeda would operate transnationally. In response, Obamas national security advisers told The New York Times a few days later that the Taliban did not pose a direct threat to the U.S.

Obamas initial reluctance to get bogged further down in the Afghan quagmire was obvious in the months preceding his speech. But he also wanted to be on the right side of the powerful security establishment. Defence Secretary Robert Gates, with valuable help from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, finally persuaded the President to go along with McChrystals plan for a military surge to secure the vital parts (the main population centres) of Afghanistan. It is, however, clear that the President, as was evident from his speech, still does not view the Taliban in its entirety as a natural enemy of the U.S. He suggested in his speech that the defeat of the Taliban was not necessary for U.S. security.

There was also no lofty talk in Obamas speech about bringing democracy to the country or helping Afghans improve their abysmal standards of living. Instead, he delivered homilies about the need to combat corruption. Obama said that there would no longer be any blank cheques for the Afghan government. Although the President stated that one of the goals of his administration was to strengthen Afghanistans security forces, neither funds nor the trainers required for the purpose have materialised. The desertion rates in the Afghan army and police are extremely high.

Obama also announced that American forces would start transferring out of Afghanistan and that a transit to Afghan responsibility would take place. After 18 months, our troops will start returning home, he said. Gen. McChrystal, however, was quick to assure the jittery Afghan government that the U.S. was not considering a precipitate military withdrawal. Gates and Hillary Clinton also made statements implying that the U.S. government was committed to a long-term military presence in Afghanistan and Central Asia. The July 2011 date is a day we start transitioning, not leaving, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the U.S. Congress. The President, in his speech, said that the struggle against violent extremism will not be finished quickly and it extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama, like Bush, is now talking about endless wars.

Obama has also given the green signal for the dispatch of large numbers of contractors (read mercenaries) to Afghanistan to help the U.S. Army wage a bloody Falluja-like counter-insurgency operation against the Afghan resistance. It is estimated that there are already more than 100,000 contractors in Afghanistan fighting alongside the occupation forces. Following the Presidents announcement, American and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) forces launched a massive attack on the Taliban stronghold of Nov Zad valley in the Helmand province.

The Pakistani establishment is alarmed at the American troop surge and the talk about American withdrawal from Afghanistan. It fears that the Taliban fighters will cross into its territory with the American forces snapping at their heels. Pakistani officials have already protested against the increasing number of American drone attacks in the tribal areas. Islamabad has also reacted with alarm to reports that the U.S. Army is all set to start a bombing campaign in Balochistan against suspected hideouts of militants.

The New York Times reported that Obama had authorised the expansion of the war into Pakistan. The paper reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had got a commitment from the White House for expanded operations, including drone strikes in Balochistan. The President suggested in his speech that Al Qaeda got support from sections of the Pakistani establishment. There have been those in Pakistan who have argued that the struggle against extremism is not their fight and that Pakistan is better off doing little, or seeking accommodation with those who use violence, he said.

The prospects of the Americans packing up and leaving Afghanistan would be a more welcome prospect for Islamabad as it seeks to regain its so-called strategic depth. But Islamabad is worried that a precipitate U.S. withdrawal will trigger a bloody civil war in Afghanistan, adding to the problems at home.

The other serious concern that Islamabad has conveyed to Washington is about the growing influence of India in Afghanistan. Pakistani officials feel that a political and military vacuum left behind by the U.S. in Afghanistan will be exploited by forces inimical to Islamabads interests.

The Indian government is also wary about the Obama administrations blueprint for the region, but for different reasons. Though it is happy that Obama did not mention India even once in his speech, the repeated references to Pakistan as an indispensable ally in the fight against terrorism have not gone down too well. It is well known that the Obama administration sees a link between Kashmir and the Afghan war. Obamas special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, has been trying unsuccessfully for some time to get India and Pakistan talking on the Kashmir issue.

Robert Gates said in the first week of December that Al Qaeda would try and provoke an India-Pakistan war by using pro-Kashmiri groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba. He said the aim of the group was to destabilise Pakistan and gain control of its nuclear arsenal. Admiral Mullen, for his part, told the U.S. Senate that the relationship between Pakistan and India was critical in the regional security context. He said that while President Obamas strategy focussed greatly on Afghanistan and Pakistan, it covered the entire South Asian region.

New Delhi has expended a lot of diplomatic energy and finances into Afghanistan. A comeback for the Taliban will also not be good news for India. New Delhi has been a consistent backer of the Northern Alliance, which fought the Taliban when it was in power. Obama consulted the Pakistani and Indian leaderships before delivering his speech, which many analysts say will define the remainder of his first term in office.

Obama described Pakistan as a friend and ally and said that the success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan. Interestingly, the President tried to portray the American occupation of Afghanistan as a benign act unlike earlier foreign interventions. He specifically mentioned the Soviet intervention, describing it as occupation. Moscow had dispatched its troops to prop up a progressive government that was trying to modernise a feudal country. It was American intervention through their Pakistani and Saudi proxies that led to the rise of Islamist extremism in the region and its consequent global spread.

Significantly, Obama also said in his speech that he supported the efforts of the Afghan government to start talking to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens. This is the line Islamabad has been urging Washington to adopt for a long time. New Delhi, on the other hand, is insisting that there is no good or bad Taliban and that the Taliban should be militarily defeated.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who was in New Delhi in the third week of November, also said that the Taliban had to be defeated. At the same time, he said that the Iranian government was against the Obama administrations military surge in Afghanistan. He said that Afghans could resolve their problems among themselves once all foreign troops left their country. New Delhi, on the other hand, seems to be favourably disposed to the indefinite stay of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The eight-year war in Afghanistan has now lasted longer than the Second World War. More than a million Afghans have lost their lives. American casualties have been the highest after Obama took office. After the announcement of the military surge, it is estimated that the U.S. government will have to spend $100 billion a year on Afghanistan alone. The President has not bothered to explain how he hopes to finance the surge in the midst of a recession. A casualty of the Afghan war could be his ambitious domestic agenda, which includes health reforms.

Already, domestic critics have been comparing Obamas decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan with President Lyndon B. Johnsons move in Vietnam in the mid-1960s. The Vietnam War left more than a million dead and President Johnson politically shattered. Johnson knew that the Vietnam War was unwinnable, but he tried to stave off the inevitable by escalating the war. Obama and his advisers are also no doubt aware that a military solution is not possible in Afghanistan.

The reaction in Afghanistan to the American decision has been generally adverse. Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai, a former Prime Minister, said that sending more troops was not the solution to the Afghan crisis. He said the decision would only result in the killings of more Afghans and Americans.

The Taliban spokesman said he welcomed the U.S. decision to send more soldiers. He said the move would further empower his organisation as it would motivate more civilians to join it in the fight to liberate their country. Most independent observers are of the view that it is the presence of foreign forces in the country, not Islamic radicalism, that makes ordinary Afghans resist the occupation.