Afghan war strategy baffles Obama administration

The Afghan war is on TV screens and projected right into the living rooms of Americans as President Obama grappled with an exist strategy and troop strength. Putting the brakes on the war has proved to be a dilemma for the administration for almost five weeks now. This is undoubtedly a defining moment. Transparency apart, the complex situation aggravated by rising war casualties has come to embarrass the Obama presidency. Trying to build a united Afghan nation around a Pashtun president -whose electoral success is questionable-and a centralized army based in Kabul supported by substantial American ground forces has been elusive.

Afghanistan is an amalgam of Pashtun (42 percent), Tajik (27 percent), Hazara (9 percent), Uzbek (9 percent), Turkmen, Baloch, Nuristani, and Pashai peoples, all of whom have had historic battles with invading foreigners and entrenched grievances running back three decades.

The question asked is how the number of US troops went from a few thousand to 10,000 in 2003, 20,000 in 2006, 30,000 in 2008 and 68,000 today. Gen. Stanley McChrystal has now asked President Barack Obama for 44,000 more.

President Obama with General McChrystal. Picture courtesy Rferl.org

The game-change-inevitable-seemed monumentally baffling. It is obvious that one of the key considerations is working out an exit strategy or withdrawing sooner than later. Even before the President announces a decision on his final Afghan strategy, the White House is trying to build support among allies, in Congress and the public. It is not an open-ended commitment of troops like what happened under Bush in Iraq.

Secret deals with warlords

While military chiefs kept on demanding more troops, most Americans are concerned that making secret deals with men like Ahmed Wali Karzai-brother of the Afghan President-who reportedly got millions paid to him by the CIA.

The dilemma is real: having to use warlords and disreputable power-brokers versus sending additional troops to meet the growing insurrection as demanded by General McChrystal. Could a people-centric strategy be built by aligning with President's brother Wali Karzai?

The crux of the Afghan policy to many Americans is now running counter to their avowed goals. It was assumed that fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan was predicated on America "winning hearts and minds." So far there are few signs that the Afghan population believes the Americans are truly looking out for their best interests. Their putting down weapons or providing intelligence on militants, as some did in Iraq, seems a far cry.

Some believe that if the US is backing - or is even perceived as backing - drug barons who flout justice and breed corruption and violence, the military will never win the trust of Afghans. According to many if the CIA henchman Ahmed Wali Karzai is pivotal to the success of the US policy then something has gone amiss.

Mired in an impasse

This backroom approach through warlords, even if carried out diligently, is hardly assured of success. According to one analyst, the corruption in Afghanistan is so endemic, its population so poor and the solutions so complex, that even 30,000 additional troops might be vastly too few to turn the war's momentum. Obama administration is swallowing large doses of reality as the war strategy in Afghanistan gets mired in an impasse and portends to show no end in sight. They US Ambassador in Kabul has not indicated a strong need for more troops so far.

There is a growing point of view that Afghan war cannot be won through counter-insurgency and more troops but by keeping Al Qaeda on the run - most probably through a serious attempt to win over the people. Special Forces action would only serve as a stop gap measure.

Treacherous terrain

The American public is perhaps getting bombarded with many views-sometimes conflicting- that there is now a greater awareness of the pitfalls in Afghanistan, its treacherous terrain and the insurmountable and complex nature of the fighting going on there.

One analyst openly forecast that more war lords may be needed to better prosecute the war.

During the Soviet occupation the CIA used the most powerful Mujahedeen commanders to prick the Soviet Army to get the Soviets out of Afghanistan then. The same tactics with a coterie of often-unsavory strongmen - as the tip of the military spear-is now being flaunted by some as a sure remedy for success.

In truth, US soldiers and spies have tussled over tactics and chains of command in almost every war the US has fought since the CIA's founding. - CIA was known for its willingness to work with corrupt officials in conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq. Many allege that in Afghanistan, there are few men of consequence that are not in some way connected to some terrible act or ally. It is the result of Afghanistan having been perpetually at war since 1979.

Now, Obama is wrestling with the question of whether the attempt to break this vicious cycle is practical for the United States. What would come out of Obama huddling with his national security team is anyone's guess. Recently Obama personally saluted the coffin of a US soldier from the war as a gesture of support to the troops-practice abandoned by George W. Bush.

The visibility of the war room proceedings could give critics ammunition to accuse Obama of being indecisive just as it gives his supporters - who are eager to suggest contrasts with former President George W. Bush's style - cause to applaud making such a critical decision in a deliberative and transparent way.

The White House is eager to show that for a president whose candidacy first sprang from his opposition to the Iraq war, the transparency is intended to illustrate that his position is thought through. Obama had been highly critical of Bush's hazy Iraq war strategies.

Lessons from Iraq war

Lessons from the Iraqi war also play a crucial part. The 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are, after almost seven years, to begin pulling out two months after January's election. But a hitch has developed. Iraq's Parliament missed the deadline for setting the rules. At issue: Will voters be allowed to choose individual candidates, or will they be allowed only to vote for slates of candidates?

America once rejected the comfort of isolationism and had to be plunged into war as dictated by George W. Bush in his 2006 State of the Union message. The fruits of interventionism are on Obama's lap as he is trying to extricate himself from an overall strategy that baffled the Russians before him.

What Iraq and Afghanistan had come to mean to the average American is that the country had get immersed in a situation that is well beyond anyone's control. With U.S. armies tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan, and America conducting Predator and cross-border attacks in Pakistan, the writing on the wall signifies a serious situation.

Looking back how has all this fighting and billions spent on war during a recession advanced U.S. national interests? We have an Iraq that is Shia-dominated and tilting to Iran.

We have an open-ended war in Afghanistan that will likely do for Obama what Iraq did for Bush. Obama has his work cut out.