Ending Wars

The upcoming intelligence assessment on Afghanistan is going to be bleak, and with the financial crisis taking primacy the Obama Administration might just want to cut their losses. These numbers are daunting:

• Violence is up 543 percent in the last five years,

• Drug cultivation is up 100 percent since 2003, and

• Afghan support for international forces in Afghanistan is down by 33 percent in the past few months.

I think the last one is the key. Even if you believe that a "surge" could restore security in the country, and by the way we don't have the troops to install one, if the support for international forces is gone, you'd be sending in targets. By the spring, when a new round of attacks will commence, this number will be even larger. While Gen. Petraeus, who is now essentially in command of the operation, wants to use tribal forces as allies against the Taliban in a kind of Pashtun Awakening, the waning support for the operation suggests that they might not agree to be put on the front lines. I don't even think the expected bribes will help.

So the Obama team is seeking a more pragmatic solution to an increasingly complex problem.

The incoming Obama administration plans to explore a more regional strategy to the war in Afghanistan -- including possible talks with Iran -- and looks favorably on the nascent dialogue between the Afghan government and "reconcilable" elements of the Taliban, according to Obama national security advisers.

President-elect Barack Obama also intends to renew the U.S. commitment to the hunt for Osama bin Laden, a priority the president-elect believes President Bush has played down after years of failing to apprehend the al-Qaeda leader. Critical of Bush during the campaign for what he said was the president's extreme focus on Iraq at the expense of Afghanistan, Obama also intends to move ahead with a planned deployment of thousands of additional U.S. troops there.

The emerging broad strokes of Obama's approach are likely to be welcomed by a number of senior U.S. military officials who advocate a more aggressive and creative course for the deteriorating conflict. Taliban attacks and U.S. casualties this year are the highest since the war began in 2001.

There are a number of options being considered. I don't see how Obama could stand in the way of reconciliation talks between the Taliban and the central government, particularly if they isolate Al Qaeda. There's also talk of another loya jirga to select new leaders, and considering Hamid Karzai's essential weakness that could be positive, albeit a potential wild-card. Already we are seeing more care put into bombing raids as a concession to the incoming Administration, which will have a moment to persuade European allies to add more troops and to reassure Afghans about the mission.

And yet we have to be clear about that mission. Undermining Al Qaeda in the border region with a Taliban-Afghan alliance might be an improvement; flooding the zone with an escalation of forces would only serve Al Qaeda's interests. In a war without a good solution, what we do know is that Afghanistan is fractious, decentralized, wary of foreign involvement, increasingly resentful of a foreign military presence and historically debilitating for those with imperial designs. Reducing our presence will disarm the tribal tendency to unite against foreign invaders (who may turn their attentions to the foreign fighters in Al Qaeda) and give the tribes the more reasonable autonomy they desire.

Obama is definitely signaling a change in policy here, which can't help but be positive. Ahmed Rashid has more on the challenges in the region.