As much as like this president personally, as hard as I worked for his campaign, I cannot support him on this policy issue by going off the cliff with him and his AfPak policy. I fear the day will come soon enough when White House insiders come forward in tell-all books and admit what most suspect but few will admit; the president never had his heart invested in winning but he felt boxed in by the media, by the generals, and by his political opponents and so he submitted the nation to a policy he never fully supported.
The night of the fight, you may feel a slight sting. That's pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps. -Marcellus Wallace
President Obama once said he is not opposed to all wars just dumb ones. I agree. All wars are not dumb but those that are, those that do not serve our national interests, those we are not committed to winning no matter the costs, must be opposed. The question before the president today is whether the war in Afghanistan serves our national interest.
In tonight’s primetime address to the nation, the president listed three reasons his administration believes the war in Afghanistan is vital to our national interests. Consequently, the president is now committed to a fresh start there in order to theoretically transition out of that beleaguered nation in eighteen months. I understand the principle behind the strategy but I disagree with the rationale nevertheless.
The main thrust of the president’s argument for a fresh start in Afghanistan is that we must defeat al-Qaeda and the Taliban members there who would provide them safe harbor. And yet by our own intelligence estimates, there are perhaps less than 100 members of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Most estimates in fact suggest there are more al-Qaeda members in Pakistan.
By most standards therefore, the war against al-Qaeda has long been over in Afghanistan. They will continue to present a significant security challenge to US interests wherever they are found and should be confronted, but their military defeat does not require 100,000 combat troops in Afghanistan. Concurrently, any attempt to defeat to the Taliban in Afghanistan is a fool’s errand. The more troops we commit the more targets we provide and the causality lists will grow with no noticeable difference on the ground. As Martin Brody remarked in the movie Jaws, "We’re going to need a bigger boat."
The second push by the president to justify our new Afghan policy centered on the idea of propping up the civilian government in Afghanistan. On one end of the spectrum the president acknowledged that a key obstacle thus far to our success in Afghanistan has been the lack of an honest, legitimate, and willing partner. And in breathtaking fashion, the president then quickly acknowledged that President Hamid Karzai’s government is illegitimate and lacks popular support, the nation is rife with corruption centering on the drug trade, and that after eight years the Afghani's have failed to do for themselves what we now aim to do in eighteen months. We can no more easily re-order the society in Afghanistan than we can relive a life already lived. To add to our distress, President Karzai’s own brother recently was implicated in the drug trade while simultaneously remaining on the payroll of the CIA.
The final leg of President Obama’s born again strategy for Afghanistan is to maintain the tenuous balance of power in the region. The Congress of Vienna would be proud no doubt. The president would have us believe that only by remaining in Afghanistan can the US military prevent the Pakistani government from certain collapse. Let’s be clear; the collapse of the Pakistani government is in no one’s interest, all nations have a stake in preventing that from happening. And yet the argument that our mere presence in Afghanistan is the best way to achieve that end-result falls short. The situation in Pakistan has significantly deteriorated as our presence in Afghanistan, and our predator drone attacks across the border, have increased. The facts on the ground simply do not match the rhetoric. So where does this leave us?
The president believes that we must achieve a fresh start in Afghanistan because the war there serves our vital national interest. However, the president also believes we cannot commit to an open-ended conflict there. History would suggest those two statements are mutually exclusive. Any war that is vital to our national interest must be prosecuted to the last full measure. This is why we as a nation have endured battles the likes of Brooklyn Heights, Gettysburg, and Iwo Jima. Concurrently, when it becomes apparent that a war no longer serves our vital national interest, whether at the Chosin Reservoir, Kaesong, or Mogadishu, we do the wise thing and come home honorably to prevent the further effusion of blood and treasure.
In his comments tonight, President Obama has all but made clear that the war in Afghanistan is not worthy of an open-ended commitment and thus not vital to our national interest. I have no doubt he is a sincere man but the policy he is proposing looks genuinely cynical. If the president is not willing to commit this nation and its resources to achieve a just and lasting peace in Afghanistan, then why continue to pretend otherwise.
As a nation, we must be prepared to meet al-Qaeda wherever and whenever they mean us and our interests harm. Additionally, we must be prepared to do all we can to prevent the collapse of the Zardari government in Pakistan. Unfortunately the new policy outlined tonight has little chance to achieve either goal. In the final analysis, we are fighting this war to save face, not to achieve absolute victory.