The Narrowness Of The Afghan Debate

The White House, a day after stating that the only part of Afghanistan war policy off the table is ending it, is throwing up a trial balloon that they will pull back on their nation-building project there:

President Obama’s national security team is moving to reframe its war strategy by emphasizing the campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan while arguing that the Taliban in Afghanistan do not pose a direct threat to the United States, officials said Wednesday.

As Mr. Obama met with advisers for three hours to discuss Pakistan, the White House said he had not decided whether to approve a proposed troop buildup in Afghanistan. But the shift in thinking, outlined by senior administration officials on Wednesday, suggests that the president has been presented with an approach that would not require all of the additional troops that his commanding general in the region has requested.

It remains unclear whether everyone in Mr. Obama’s war cabinet fully accepts this view. While Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has argued for months against increasing troops in Afghanistan because Pakistan was the greater priority, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have both warned that the Taliban remain linked to Al Qaeda and would give their fighters havens again if the Taliban regained control of all or large parts of Afghanistan, making it a mistake to think of them as separate problems [...]

The White House appears to be trying to prepare the ground to counter that by focusing attention on recent successes against Qaeda cells in Pakistan. The approach described by administration officials on Wednesday amounted to an alternative to the analysis presented by General McChrystal. If, as the White House has asserted in recent weeks, it has improved the ability of the United States to reduce the threat from Al Qaeda, then the war in Afghanistan is less central to American security.

I'm glad that there's at least some pushback on the silly "safe havens" theory, which if allowed to predominate would lead us down a road of endless escalation. So scaling back the mission from one that is simply unachievable to a more achievable one makes sense. The counter-insurgency cult is quite dangerous. The best you can say about it is that it keeps warmongers away from an anti-China defense buildup.

Joking aside, it’s worth keeping in mind when you see arguments about counterinsurgency that there are really two different debates happening. One is the debate inside the military and the defense policy establishment which is really a debate about COIN versus non-COIN military activity. Another is a debate about that pertains to the larger question of the strategic and budgetary priorities of the United States. In my experience COIN enthusiasts tend to have the better of the limited argument about the relative allocation of military resources, but generally decline to engage in a serious way with the larger question of national priorities. In other words, a debate that ranges from “we should fight a series of small wars against Muslims” to “we should prepare for a big war against China” is really seen as “lively” rather than incredibly cramped and narrow.

Perhaps policymakers are coming to their senses about COIN, but not about the overall need to disengage from pointless wars. But they should. New liberal hero Alan Grayson, who's been saying this stuff for a while, effectively articulated the alternative the other day:

"I think that the aid program is a fig leaf trying to make congress and the American people feel better about the war and about killing. I think that diplomacy in the areas of fig leaf to try to make the American people think that there is some constructive alternative to the war when the war itself is destructive and not constructive [...]

If we wanted to rethink Afghanistan in our image, we’d have to destroy the north to save it, and I don’t think the American people are ever going to do that to anybody. So I think that the underline premise is simply wrong.

I’ve been to 175 countries all around the world including Afghanistan, including every country in that region, and what I’ve seen everywhere I go is that there are some commonalities everywhere you go, everywhere you go people want to fall in love. It’s an interesting thing. Everywhere you go, people love children. Everywhere, they love children. Everywhere you go, there’s a taboo against violence. Every single place you go. And everywhere you go, people want to be left alone. And that’s the best foreign policy of all. Just to leave people alone."

President Obama is holding a troop request in his hands and deciding between a big escalation or a small escalation. Nowhere is there a strategy for no escalation, to shut it down, in the words of Charlie Wilson, the original American interventionist in Afghanistan.

Bringing Afghanistan Back To Core Strategy

Yesterday's big bipartisan meeting on Afghanistan hasn't resolved the decision from the White House, although it clarified a few data points:

House and Senate leaders of both parties emerged from a nearly 90-minute conversation with Obama with praise for his candor and interest in listening. But politically speaking, all sides appeared to exit where they entered, with Republicans pushing Obama to follow his military commanders and Democrats saying he should not be rushed [...]

Obama said the war would not be reduced to a narrowly defined counterterrorism effort, with the withdrawal of many U.S. forces and an emphasis on special operations forces that target terrorists in the dangerous border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Two senior administration officials aides say such a scenario has been inaccurately characterized and linked to Vice President Joe Biden, and that Obama wanted to make clear he is considering no such plan [...]

Obama may be considering a more modest building of troops — closer to 10,000 than 40,000 — according to Republican and Democratic congressional aides. But White House aides said no such decision has been made.

The New York Times confirms this. This seems to almost be the worst possible option. If you're continuing a counter-insurgency strategy, all of the literature on it dictates that it needs a certain amount of resources far greater than what exist in the country now. If you're shifting to counter-terrorism, you would necessarily need less ground troops. This just seems like a recipe for muddling through, and shifting really to the same kind of air war that we saw under George Bush. I know there's data that the drone attacks are working to disrupt Al Qaeda in Pakistan, but an air war in more populous areas, where the Taliban is essentially embedded with local populations, doesn't seem like a useful option.

This Quinnipiac poll has fairly good news for advocates of muddling through. While only 30% want to stay in Afghanistan "as long as it takes," 65% are willing to have soldiers fight there, at least for the moment. A plurality believe that the fight will not be successful in defeating any terrorist threat, however. So it's muddled as well. I think there's a base of support for antiwar actions, but that voice has been stilled for so long that I'd say the mass of the public is generally resigned to a seeming perpetual war, and will accept whatever decision the President makes.

It doesn't seem like Obama is seeking out voices apart from Congress and his staff of advisors. You know who he should ring up? Audrey Kurth Cronin from the US National War College, who is focusing on the core question of how the terrorist threat can be reduced.

The history of terrorist groups points to various ways they may decline and end: the destruction of leadership, failure to transition between generations, achieving their stated cause, negotiating a settlement, succumbing to military or police repression, losing popular support and transitioning to other malignant activities such as criminality or war [...]

American use of military force signified Western resolve, killed al Qaeda leaders and prevented attacks, all of which were vital; but force alone cannot drive this group to its end.

A loss of popular support has ended many terrorist groups, and it is a plausible scenario for al Qaeda. Support can be compromised through miscalculation, especially in targeting, and popular backlash. The Real Irish Republican Army and India's Sikh separatists come to mind. Or a campaign can fail to convey a positive image or progress toward its goals, which amply applies to al Qaeda.

While the group continues to be dangerous, the faltering popularity of this campaign with most Muslims provides clear evidence of this dynamic underway [...]

In this regard, it is counterproductive to consider al Qaeda as a global insurgency. This concept bestows legitimacy, emphasizes territorial control, encourages our enemies to join forces and puts the United States into an us-versus-them strategic framework that precludes clear-eyed analyses of the strategies of leverage that are being used against the United States and its allies.

In short, if we are thinking about classic pathways to the end, the secret to undermining this campaign is not "winning hearts and minds" but enhancing al Qaeda's tendency to lose them.

I read this to mean that the dynamic of military force to subdue the Al Qaeda threat is misplaced. They are diminishing of their own accord and we can accelerate that through strategic engagement and public diplomacy with the Muslim world. Obama has a foothold here - his presence has actually lifted the status of the United States to the world's most admired country again. But that can be fleeting. And intensifying a war in the Muslim world will sap at that goodwill. We can use intelligence capabilities to weaken Al Qaeda and allow their extremist rhetoric to play itself out among their constituency. None of this necessarily involves nation-building.

I don't think this framework is part of the discussions in the White House at all. And that's tragic.

Listen To The Afghanis

I guess there was a big confab of the War Council yesterday about what to do in Afghanistan, and clearly the team has split over a counter-insurgency or a counter-terrorism strategy. Now, in many ways that's two sides of the same coin, just a matter of how to explain the killing of foreigners. And I don't know if either strategy gets us closer to an exit - we're not going to kill every terrorist, as surely as we're not going to convert every Afghani into a tribune of democracy. But I do think it's clear that shifting away from a COIN strategy at least offers the possibility of getting us out of the region in a shorter period of time, and hopefully with less blood on our hands. So I'm rooting for the Biden faction. It appears that Bob Gates is the key swing vote here.

That said, the next War Council meeting could maybe have a representative of the people from the country whose destiny is being decided.

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan - Take advice from locals instead of trying to impose your own ideas on a tribal society. Invite the Taliban to the negotiating table. Use traditional governing structures rather than reinventing the wheel. And spend a lot more money on plowshares than on swords [...]

Afghans interviewed in their shops and on the streets have plenty of advice for the U.S. president and his allies: Don't necessarily leave, but for your sake and for ours, you'd better get a lot smarter about what you do here.

Several said they welcomed the presence of U.S. and NATO troops, whom they view as far more benign than the Soviets who occupied the country in the 1980s. They fear that a rapid withdrawal of foreign forces could throw the country into another civil war.

But they don't necessarily think a foreign military buildup is the answer.

"I'm afraid the Taliban will only get stronger," said Obiadullah Zahir, 30, a dress merchant, standing beside a row of attired mannequins with broken noses and missing arms. "I'm afraid America will leave and war return." [...]

Either you try to get the Taliban to buy in, said Amin Khatir, 24, a student in the capital, or you face an enemy that is increasingly entrenched, organized and more broadly distributed. That's a big problem, no matter how many pieces of fancy equipment foreign armies may wield.

"The Americans only want to deal with those they meet with, who speak English, not the ones farther away," Khatir said. "An election can't solve more than 1% of our problems. We must find a new way, and the main issue is security." [...]

Rather than sanction some minimally acceptable election, he said, Afghanistan should convene a traditional loya jirga, or meeting of power brokers from around the country, as it did after the Taliban was ousted.

"If you pile more bricks onto an unstable house, the whole thing will collapse," he said.

Are any of these sentiments making it into the War Council?

Mr. President, you're being very deliberative about this process. Be sure you get some local perspectives, too. It's their county, after all.

The Biden Plan For Afghanistan

This would be a serious strategy shift, and the right one, IMO:

President Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan, including a plan advocated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out Al Qaeda there and in Pakistan, officials said Tuesday.

The options under review are part of what administration officials described as a wholesale reconsideration of a strategy the president announced with fanfare just six months ago. Two new intelligence reports are being conducted to evaluate Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials said [...]

Instead of increasing troops, officials said, Mr. Biden proposed scaling back the overall American military presence. Rather than trying to protect the Afghan population from the Taliban, American forces would concentrate on strikes against Qaeda cells, primarily in Pakistan, using special forces, Predator missile attacks and other surgical tactics [...]

A shift from a counterinsurgency strategy to a focus on counterterrorism would turn the administration’s current theory on its head....But the Afghan presidential election, widely marred by allegations of fraud, undermined the administration’s confidence that it had a reliable partner in President Hamid Karzai. Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden already had raised doubts about Mr. Karzai, which were only exacerbated by the fear that even if he emerges from a runoff election, he will have little credibility with his own people.

Counter-terrorism was the initial goal and is still cited as the main reason for being in Afghanistan, so I don't know if I'd call it a shift in strategy more than a return to the actual strategy, the only one with national security implications.

This is probably another trial balloon, but it's clear that there is no unanimity of opinion in the White House on Afghanistan. Some people look at a country with no functioning government and a fraudulent, illegitimate leader, and they wonder how you can run a counter-insurgency campaign around that. And they would be right. Heck, General McChrystal said they're right, basically (via K-Drum):

McChrystal's point is that it's not simply "resources," not just U.S. and NATO troops, that will settle the war. It's also whether the Afghan government earns the trust of its people — whether the Afghan president and his entourage of ministers, governors, and warlords are willing — or are willing to be lured — to clean up their act, end their corrupt practices, and truly serve their people.

When Obama says he needs to review the strategy before he decides on troop levels, he almost certainly means that he needs to assess whether a counterinsurgency strategy makes sense if the Afghan government — the entity that our troops would be propping up and aligning themselves with — is viewed by a wide swath of its own people as illegitimate.

Given this fact, the parallels to Vietnam and the Diem government become clear. They never had a popular legitimacy there, either, making the fight a losing battle.

America does not have a good track record of de-escalating a war in the face of the evidence. It would be a very bold maneuver for a President not inclined toward bold maneuvers, at least so far. But getting trapped in a war because of the tauntings of hawks, when there's so much else to get right, would be a disappointment. I'm pleased that he hasn't rushed to the conclusion of the generals here, and is seriously thinking about the reality of the situation instead of some fantasy world where America builds an oasis of democracy in a country that has never known it.

...by the way, this sounds like a really good cover story, showing Bob Woodward and the Washington Post's commitment to the safety of the troops, without addressing the elephant in the room, that whoever leaked the document wanted to force the President's hand and Woodward let them. That would be the opposite of the "Pentagon Papers," to which Woodward likened it. It's a propaganda ploy designed to embarrass the commander-in-chief into escalation. And Woodward played along. What a hero.

Metrics Toward Ending The War In Afghanistan, Or To Justify It?

The commanding general in Afghanistan basically said yesterday that our strategy in the country is failing.

A top US general in Afghanistan has called for a revised military strategy, suggesting the current one is failing.

In a strategic assessment, Gen Stanley McChrystal said that, while the Afghan situation was serious, success was still achievable.

The report has not yet been published, but sources say Gen McChrystal sees protecting the Afghan people against the Taliban as the top priority.

The report does not carry a direct call for increasing troop numbers.

"The situation in Afghanistan is serious, but success is achievable and demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort," Gen McChrystal said in the assessment.

McChrystal is engaging in some sleight of hand here. The top priority for the Obama Administration, at least in the President's public statements, has never been "protecting the Afghan people against the Taliban." We've heard about dismantling Taliban safe havens, but not that our military should be used as an internal security force. We should at least have that debate if it's the new goal.

I'm more concerned that the Administration feels it has to race to show progress, basing their continued presence in Afghanistan not on any security objective, but simply meaning to justify the presence through demonstrable benchmarks. If the benchmarks, or "metrics" in the new parlance, are not tethered to a fundamental mission or strategy, how can we possibly define success? In recent years, the success or failure in achieving benchmarks or metrics have had no impact on the larger decisions of escalation or drawdown. A benchmark strategy just looks like a justification strategy rather than any kind of real assessment.

This is why we need a timetable to bring our troops home. We do not have a clear reason for remaining in the country - Al Qaeda has departed, we cannot expect to eradicate every safe haven everywhere in the world, nor can we expect to radically transform centuries of political and social reality in that part of the world through nation-building. As Bill Moyers said in his excellent interview with Bill Maher:

MOYERS: I’d think it would be a tragedy beyond description for this young, bright, exciting President to be drawn into an endless war in the same way that the last young, bright, exciting President was drawn into – intervened in Vietnam. I was there when Kennedy chose to send advisers to Vietnam – and was there when LBJ escalated – they both acted from noble intentions – actually they did – they wanted to stop Communism in Asia and spread democracy – but the advisers soon became bombers and the bombers became grounds troops and pretty soon, it became a regional crusade – and 12 years later, billions of dollars, and millions of lives later, including 60,000 American troops – we lost – because the U.S. is not good at that sort of thing.

Here Obama has 68,000 troops over there and the Generals are asking for another 20,000 -- maybe 30,000 more troops -- saying it’s not enough. The military and the hawks will always say "not enough." Obama has to say "enough" -- or he’s going to be drawn into it.

Now they’ve shifted the mission of troops: to protect the villages of Afghanistan. 100,000 Americans can’t protect the villages of Afghanistan – and now they say we’re going to be there to build a nation – we’re not good at building other nations – we’re hardly good at building our nation. If you're an Afghani and look up and see Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California legislature coming to build your nation, you’re going to run – you’re going to put up a No Trespassing sign. We need to come home.

We have this two-track problem, as Moyers expertly pointed out. We have a President, or more to the point a political system, captive to corporate special interests. And we have a promising foreign policy in other respect on the verge of being snuffed out by an obstinate focus on a nation-building experiment halfway across the world which we cannot even really hope to affect. We can defend our national security with law enforcement and intelligence and local information sharing. We do not need a war.

Eye Off The Ball

I've heard for seven years that George W. Bush had the chance to capture Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in the mountains of Tora Bora, and we pulled out to focus on the invasion of Iraq. John Kerry ran on that point. Barack Obama ran on it. The whole idea was that Iraq was the bad, unnecessary war, and Afghanistan was the good war, and we needed to move our focus back on Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda was, to disrupt their safe havens.

Turns out the commander in Afghanistan thinks we have focused too much on Al Qaeda in the war ostensibly designed to dismantle al Qaeda.

U.S. military leaders have concluded that their war effort in Afghanistan has been too focused on hunting Al Qaeda, and have begun to shift Predator drone aircraft to the fight against the Taliban and other militants in order to prevent the country from slipping deeper into anarchy.

The move, described by government and Defense Department officials, represents a major change in the military's use of one of its most precious intelligence assets. It also illustrates the hard choices that must be made because the drones are in short supply [...]

"We have been overly counter-terrorism-focused and not counter-insurgency-focused," said one U.S. official.

Senior government officials said Bin Laden remained a prime target but that they needed to focus on fighting the Taliban.

"We might still be too focused on Bin Laden," the official said. "We should probably reassess our priorities."

I think the proper response is that we've been counter-terrorism-focused because OUR MISSION IS SUPPOSED TO BE COUNTER-TERRORISM. Or at least it was, until the new Pentagon kewl kids decided you could hug the ones you bomb and make them love you.

Without consultation with the country, the military completely transferred the mission in Afghanistan. They are less concerned with dismantling Al Qaeda and more concerned with a counter-insurgency bank shot. Gen. McChrystal, a real white-whale chaser, described his strategy in the Washington Post today. And surprise, it'll take more personnel.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan is preparing a new strategy that calls for major changes in the way U.S. and other NATO troops there operate, a vast increase in the size of Afghan security forces and an intensified military effort to root out corruption among local government officials, according to several people familiar with the contents of an assessment report that outlines his approach to the war.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who took charge of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last month, appears inclined to request an increase in American troops to implement the new strategy, which aims to use more unconventional methods to combat the growing Taliban insurgency, according to members of an advisory group he convened to work on the assessment. Such a request could receive a chilly reception at the White House, where some members of President Obama's national security team have expressed reluctance about authorizing any more deployments.

Senior military officials said McChrystal is waiting for a recommendation from a team of military planners in Kabul before reaching a final decision on a troop request. Several members of the advisory group, who spoke about the issue of force levels on the condition of anonymity, said that they think more U.S. troops are needed but that it was not clear how large an increase McChrystal would seek.

"There was a very broad consensus on the part of the assessment team that the effort is under-resourced and will require additional resources to get the job done," a senior military official in Kabul said.

This is flat-out mission creep. We entered Afghanistan to deny a staging ground for attacks against America. And now we're there to nation-build. One isn't necessarily unrelated to the other, but we're admittedly nation-building only in the areas where the Taliban isn't already dug in, meaning we are allowing various safe havens and staging grounds. To the extent that we're trying to split the Taliban, counter-insurgency methods have their role; but this sounds really more advanced than that. Spencer writes:

But there's a big difference between that and a counterinsurgency strategy for a nation-building objective, and a still greater one between that and a counterinsurgency strategy for a prophylactic objective. The American people have never approved sending 68,000 troops to suffer for Hamid Karzai, and certainly never approved sending them to keep Pakistan from falling to the Taliban. (Which, by the way, seems like a distinctly unrealistic scenario, especially now that the Pakistani military moved into Swat. The Taliban-led insurgency is a threat to Pakistan. It's not going to rule the country. Westerners have a tendency of predicting the imminent fall of Pakistan every five years or so.)

Perhaps I'm misreading what it is the people around McChrystal are saying, but it seems fair to say that the balance of evidence favors an interpretation that Afghanistan strategy is coming unmoored from the actual objectives of the war, and the actual interests at stake, and the White House is being either deluded or outright dishonest about what's happening. "Our goal is to deal with the terrorist elements that are in that country and are making life for Afghans and potentially life for millions throughout the world more dangerous through their activities," Robert Gibbs said from the White House podium today. That is simply not what's coming from McChrystal's circle.

The White House either has to rein in this effort, or own it. And if they own it, they must explain their deception to the public, and why the policy became hijacked by a clique in the Pentagon.

Where Is The End In Afghanistan?

The New York Times has a tick-tock on the internal debate leading to the final Afghanistan strategy, and the story presumes a schism between Joe Biden and James Steinberg, arguing for a more limited role for US forces, and Richard Holbrooke and Hillary Clinton, arguing for a more expansive one.

All of the president’s advisers agreed that the primary goal in the region should be narrow — taking aim at Al Qaeda, as opposed to the vast attempt at nation-building the Bush administration had sought in Iraq. The question was how to get there.

The commanders in the field wanted a firmer and long-term commitment of more combat troops beyond the 17,000 that Mr. Obama had already promised to send, and a pledge that billions of dollars would be found to significantly expand the number of Afghan security forces.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pressed for an additional 4,000 troops to be sent to Afghanistan — but only to serve as trainers. They tempered the commanders’ request and agreed to put off any decision to order more combat troops to Afghanistan until the end of this year, when the strategy’s progress could be assessed.

During these discussions, Mr. Biden was the voice of caution, reminding the group members that they would have to sell their plans to a skeptical Congress.

I think this depends on your meaning of the word "limited." Everyone in the room agreed with Biden about narrowing the focus to defeating Al Qaeda and dismantling their safe havens. But surely that is not a limited goal. And the lack of a defined exit strategy doesn't exactly presume some limited commitment. Under the terms of this plan, we will be in Afghanistan and Pakistan for a long time, and we will find it harder to extricate ourselves, as such an exit is based on a very shaky Afghan security force and a buy-in from a Pakistani government that apparently cannot be trusted.

Some in the administration are skeptical that the Pakistanis will meet their commitments under the new strategy. “You have people there who just lie to our face, like Zardari, who just lies to us,” said one official who requested anonymity, referring to the Pakistani president. “Honestly, I don’t believe there’s a war going on in the tribal areas. The Pakistanis tell us that, but they’re just baldfaced lies.” The official believes that U.S. diplomats in Pakistan accept Pakistani claims of maximal warfighting efforts at face value: “They don’t speak Urdu, they don’t speak Pashto, and they eat it all up.”

Yikes.

For what it's worth, both Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai praised the new plan, in particular the emphasis on increased foreign aid and economic development and the inclusion of a regional diplomatic component, with the notable addition of Iran at the negotiating table. Those actually are the positive signs of this plan, in my view. But I agree with Publius that a lot of this makes me a little queasy.

You're all familiar with the phrase "canary in the coal mine." The idea was that miners would bring canaries down into the mines as warning signals. When the air became toxic, the canaries would be affected first -- thus warning the miners of imminent danger.

With respect to the Afghanistan policy, the problem isn't that the "signaling" canaries are dropping dead. The problem is that they're too happy -- they're chirping with excessive mirth. Specifically, when Max Boot, Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol, and the Post editorial board are all excited about the policy.... well, it might be time to get out of the mine [...]

This strategy seems extremely susceptible to morphing into an open-ended, long-term commitment without clear objectives. Frankly, I didn't see any exit strategy yesterday. I saw no verifiable metrics for determining whether we're achieving our objectives (and on that -- is the objective to disrupt al Qaeda, or to stabilize the government?). I've heard promises of benchmarks -- but nothing yet. And even assuming concrete benchmarks emerge, it's hard to believe we'll really pack up and leave if they're not met.

Let's be clear -- this is an escalation. It's a reasonable one, for now. But these things tend to snowball. To echo Robert Frost, way leads on to way. And if things deteriorate, or if our allies depart, it's easier to imagine that additional escalation (rather than minimalism) will follow. It's not that I don't believe in the goal -- I'm just skeptical that increased military efforts are capable of achieving these goals.

While I disagree with Publius that the objective is unclear, I can certainly see Obama getting boxed in if the mission fails - his newfound neocon friends will push him to commit more troops and treasure, operating on the sunk-cost principle, and wanting to be seen as a strong President, he'll do so. They have a word for leaders like that: Lyndon Johnson.

Obama enters into this with a public fairly wary of an escalating commitment to Afghanistan and Pakistan. They support the President personally, and as he explained it on Friday they will support his mission in the short term. But as the days drag on, and the end appears further and further from view, war fatigue and the concern over the economy will make it very difficult to sustain that support at home. Ultimately, some will start talking about "containment" and when we can bring the troops home and turn this into a law enforcement and intelligence mission. And I don't know what Obama's answer would be.

The New Af-Pak Strategy

OK, so I just listened to President Obama's statement about Af-Pak policy. Essentially, Obama will deploy 4,000 additional trainers to build up the Afghan security forces to the peak number of around 200,000 (army and police) by 2011 instead of 2013. In addition, thousands of civilians will be added to aid in development and reconstruction efforts. There is an expected commitment from NATO along those lines as well, but I'll believe it when I see it. And the President will properly fund the war effort, characterizing it by saying that no longer will Afghanistan and Pakistan resources come up short due to the war in Iraq. Of course, a recent GAO report says that withdrawal in Iraq will be massively expensive in its own right, so the idea that savings in Iraq can be transferred to Af-Pak doesn't make a lot of sense, at least not in the short term. We'll still be bleeding treasure, as well as additional lives, through the near future.

President Obama's new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy will require significantly higher levels of U.S. funding for both countries, with U.S. military expenses in Afghanistan alone, currently about $2 billion a month, increasing by about 60 percent this year [...]

Obama plans to announce a "simple, clear, concise goal -- to disrupt, dismantle and eventually destroy al-Qaeda in Pakistan," said the official, one of three authorized to anonymously discuss the strategy. The president will describe his plan in a White House speech to a group of selected military, diplomatic and development officials and nongovernmental aid groups.

The officials declined to put dollar figures on aspects of the strategy other than the cost of U.S. combat forces in Afghanistan. Initial funding requests for hundreds of additional U.S. civilian officials to be sent there, as well as increased economic and development assistance to both Afghanistan and Pakistan, will come in a 2009 supplemental appropriation that the administration has not yet outlined.

The goal is certainly more focused, a counter-terrorism effort to deny a safe haven, but it's tied up with a lot of counter-insurgency efforts, aiding locals on the ground, strengthening the corrupt government (and hopefully weeding out corruption), and trying to siphon off reconcilable Taliban. He will seek basic benchmarks for progress instead of throwing in more troops and hoping for the best.

In imposing conditions on the Afghans and Pakistanis, Mr. Obama is replicating a strategy used in Iraq two years ago both to justify a deeper American commitment and prod governments in the region to take more responsibility for quelling the insurgency and building lasting political institutions.

“The era of the blank check is over,” Mr. Obama told Congressional leaders at the White House, according to an account of the meeting provided on the condition of anonymity because it was a private session [...]

Although the administration is still developing the specific benchmarks for Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials said they would be the most explicit demands ever presented to the governments in Kabul and Islamabad. In effect, Mr. Obama would be insisting that two fractured countries plagued by ancient tribal rivalries and modern geopolitical hostility find ways to work together and transform their societies.

American officials have repeatedly said that Afghanistan has to make more progress in fighting corruption, curbing the drug trade and sharing power with the regions, while they have insisted that Pakistan do more to cut ties between parts of its government and the Taliban. Mr. Obama telephoned President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan on Thursday to share the main elements of the strategic review.

There's a substantial civilian component as well as a regional diplomatic component. In fact, Iran will attend a conference on Af-Pak next week at The Hague. Clearly the United States seeks support for this effort, and Obama played up the need for all nations to be concerned about Al Qaeda safe havens in the region.

I guess my reaction is one of pessimism that this can work. That's not a reason to try, but particularly with respect to Pakistan, I think we have limited reach. Just today, the day of the announcement of a new way forward, a suicide bomber killed 48 during prayers at a Pakistan mosque. And this week has yielded reports that the Pakistani intelligence service still helps the Afghan insurgency. The intelligence service characterizes this as a counter-weight to Indian influence in the region and a hedge against American withdrawal, and now that this commitment has been made, perhaps it will subside. But perhaps not. Getting the whole region, including India, to work together against a common enemy will be a monumental task. And relying on a larger NATO commitment doesn't seem realistic.

Russ Feingold responds:

“I am pleased that the administration is focused on al Qaeda, which is our top national security threat. I particularly appreciated the President's remarks, which addressed the role of Pakistan in these problems first. A new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy has been sorely lacking for years. I am pleased that the plan includes specific benchmarks for progress in Afghanistan, with a strong emphasis on fighting corruption in the Afghan government, and an increase in civilian assistance. I am also pleased with the beginnings of the necessary emphasis on the even greater problems in Pakistan.
“However, I am concerned that the new strategy may still be overly Afghan-centric when it needs to be even more regional. As the bombing near the Khyber pass this morning highlights, we need to fully address the inextricable links between the crisis in Afghanistan and the instability and terrorist threats in Pakistan.

“Unfortunately, the legacy of the Bush administration in this region can best be compared to a comment the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made in 2007: 'In Iraq, we do what we must and in Afghanistan, we do what we can.' This new administration must ensure that we do what we must not only in Afghanistan, but also in Pakistan."

"In other words, the proposed military escalation in Afghanistan, without an adequate strategy in Pakistan, could make the situation worse, not better."

There was an op-ed this week (I can't find it right now) that essentially said we can't fix Afghanistan without fixing Pakistan, and we can't fix Pakistan.

So what then?

The Last Straw

Outside of the murder of thousands of innocent American citizens, I was all set to ease up on Al Qaeda in this new climate of bipartisanship and unity. But then Ayman al-Zawahiri goes and calls Barack Obama a House Negro. I guess literally translated he said "house slaves," but the English subtitles that Al Qaeda helpfully provided said "House Negro."

For a legitimate analysis of this speech, go to Juan Cole (basically Zawahiri was calling Obama a pro-white slave, which is crucially wrong). But I'm going to just shake my head and wonder, "If we can't trust the terrorists to be tolerant of all races, what hope do any of us have?" By the way, Ayman, you're not exactly Aryan yourself. And neither are 99.9% of all Muslims who have experienced the sting of discrimination.

I think Cole's final thoughts are on point:

It is absolutely clear toward the end of the video that al-Zawahiri is petrified of Obama's popularity and is very afraid that he will be a game-changer in relations between the Muslim world and the United States. Hence his flailing around talking about house slaves, as though Obama were not (as of Jan. 20) himself the most powerful man in the world, catapulted into his position by nearly half of American whites (who voted for him in higher proportions than they did for Clinton and Kerry).

Al-Zawahiri has seen a lot of Muslim politics, and if he is this afraid of Obama, it is a sign that the new president has enormous potential to deploy soft power against al-Qaeda, and al-Zawahiri is running scared, trying to pretend it is still the 1960s, when it just isn't.

(Strangely, Zawahiri and McCain, through the focus on Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground, share this error!)

There is certainly a desperation in the Al Qaeda leader's speech, a recognition that moderate Muslims can be pushed back to the side of the West in this struggle. The fact of Obama's skin color and his policy on diplomatic engagement disarms a major element of Al Qaeda's propaganda, that the US punishes minorities and ignores the world. More than anything, Al Qaeda detests open societies, which is among the promises of an Obama victory. They fear the change he represents.

However, beyond the symbolism, which is significant, this also has to be about policy. To truly capitalize on this moment to marginalize terrorist extremists, we need to end practices like this:

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 19--The United States, the world's largest international aid donor, is among the worst at promoting the independence, impartiality and neutrality of humanitarian aid deliveries to needy populations, according to a survey by a Madrid-based nonprofit group that monitors donors' performance.

The Development Assistance Research Associates (DARA) Humanitarian Response Index 2008 measures how effectively the world's 23 largest donors deliver aid. The United States ranked 15th in overall effectiveness and only 13th in the level of generosity measured by the size of its economy.

But it ranked near the bottom, 22nd, when it came to adherence to principles and guidelines established by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to ensure that political considerations don't exclude worthy recipients of aid.

DARA's findings reflect what it called the United States' use of humanitarian assistance to achieve military or political goals in eight crisis zones the group studied, including Afghanistan, Colombia and the Palestinian territories.

A more progressive counter-terrorism strategy not only takes into account the role of local law enforcement and intelligence in disrupting plots, but it treats the world less like pieces on a chess board and more like equals. And in this context, the security benefit to seeking real humanitarian goals and reducing poverty is incalculable. In other words, less missile strikes and more bowls of rice, schools and bridges. We must lead with our values because that's the best way to show countries the world over that this Administration is really different.

Spencer Ackerman had a great piece on what a progressive counter-terrorism policy would look like that is well worth your time.

The Stimulus Fallout

Every newspaper I've read is calling the stimulus package deal reached between Democratic Congressional leaders and the Bush White House a glorious bit of bipartisan awesomeness. Except there's nothing awesome about it.

Specifically, the Democrats appear to have buckled in the face of the Bush administration’s ideological rigidity, dropping demands for provisions that would have helped those most in need. And those happen to be the same provisions that might actually have made the stimulus plan effective [...]

The goal of a stimulus plan should be to support overall spending, so as to avert or limit the depth of a recession. If the money the government lays out doesn’t get spent — if it just gets added to people’s bank accounts or used to pay off debts — the plan will have failed.

And sending checks to people in good financial shape does little or nothing to increase overall spending. People who have good incomes, good credit and secure employment make spending decisions based on their long-term earning power rather than the size of their latest paycheck. Give such people a few hundred extra dollars, and they’ll just put it in the bank.

And Krugman has the numbers to prove it. Close to two-thirds of these rebates go to the top two-fifths of American households, to people who don't need the money and who won't spend it. Democrats in the Senate are trying to change that, and Bush is chastising them, saying not to mess with his terrible plan. So we're headed for another humiliation, and a potential cave-in by Democrats, giving a fake "stimulus" that puts a lot of extra money needlessly into the pockets of rich people.

Meanwhile, it seems that the Dems should makemore of this.

The Bush administration will cut counterterrorism money for police, firefighters and rescue departments next year, but not by as much as it originally proposed.

Next month the White House will request $2.2 billion to help states and cities protect against terrorist attacks in 2009, and not $1.4 billion, an administration aide told Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., on Friday. That would be 10 percent more than the president requested for 2008, but 40 percent less than Congress gave the department this year.

This is called "keeping America safe."

FEAR Unit: After The Fear Goes Away

For those joining us late, I often discuss FEAR Unit, the Federal Election-year Anti-terror Response Unit, which exists to promote seemingly bogus terror attacks just to keep everybody afraid. One of their greatest hits was the "Liberty City 7," the group in Miami that was plotting to blow up the Sears Tower - even though they didn't have enough money to buy their own shoes. Well, that trial finally wound up this week, and, um...

A jury in Miami has cleared one man of trying to blow up America's tallest building, the Sears Tower in Chicago, as part of a holy war.

The jury was unable to reach a verdict on six other defendants, and the judge declared a mistrial. Prosecutors say they plan to try them again next year.

This was a group of nuts who had no operational ability to pull off anything approaching a terror attack. The only person they managed to contact to help them on this "quest" was an FBI informant, and it looked suspiciously that the informant pushed them into whatever it is they were supposed to be doing. Yet it looks good in the papers for there to be "successes" in thwarting terror plots (that the FBI creates and nurtures). Meanwhile, actual domestic terror plots go unnoticed.

Rameau says that the Liberty City Seven coverage has upstaged other important news. In a conversation with RAW STORY earlier this week, he said that on the day of the Liberty City arrests, “a former director of the right-wing Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) admitted to planning terrorist acts against Cuba.”

Yet this “failed either to draw national attention or merit ‘above the fold’ coverage on the front page of the Miami Herald,” said Rameau.

The CANF conspirators were charged and acquitted by a Puerto Rican jury in 1997, after a federal judge threw out one of the defendants' self-incriminating statements. No charges have ever been brought against the individuals on the U.S. mainland.

Rameau notes that while the government has taken action against "men with little to no demonstrable capacity to advance their plans beyond the discussion stage,” it has refused to extradite – or prosecute – Luis Posada, suspected mastermind of the bombing of a Cuban airliner “full of human beings” in 1976.

And in this environment, where counter-terrorism has been totally politicized, Jane Harman wants to bring up something as stupid like her thought police counter-terrorism bill. Crazy.

The Slow March Out Of The Bush Administration

I thought that the reason given for the mass exodus this summer of all the White House officials was that the Chief of Staff told everybody that you either leave by Labor Day or stay on until the bitter end. Fran Townsend apparently didn't get the memo (neither did Karen Hughes, meaning that basically that whole line of argument was a crock).

Fran Townsend, the leading White House-based terrorism adviser who gave public updates on the extent of the threat to U.S. security, is stepping down after 4 1/2 years.

President Bush said in a statement Monday morning that Townsend, 45, ''has ably guided the Homeland Security Council. She has played an integral role in the formation of the key strategies and policies my administration has used to combat terror and protect Americans.''

Townsend jumped, after seeing counter-terrorism efforts put in a precarious position by failed foreign policy initiatives like the occupation of Iraq. Rachel Paulose, however, one of the legacies of the US Attorney scandal, was pushed.

Rachel Paulose, the embattled U.S. attorney for Minnesota, will be leaving the post to take a position at the Justice Department in Washington, the department confirmed Monday.

''We are pleased that Rachel Paulose has accepted the position of counselor to the assistant attorney general in the department's office of legal policy,'' Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said in an e-mail statement [...]

Paulose was just 32 and working for the Justice Department in Washington when she was named interim U.S. attorney in February 2006 to succeed Tom Heffelfinger, who had resigned and returned to private practice [...]

Paulose's troubles flared up again recently over allegations that she had made racially disparaging comments about one employee and mishandled classified documents that should have been kept locked up. The Justice Department began an internal investigation.

That prompted Coleman to urge Mukasey, then the attorney general nominee, that there should be a ''thorough review'' of the allegations, and that the Justice Department needed to provide better management support to U.S. attorney offices.

Paulose was the epitome of a Federalist Society-approved political hack, thrown into the US Attorney position without the relevant management skills, and thundering through the office like a house afire. Her return back to the rock she crawled out from under is encouraging, but of course there will be hundreds like her, little landmines all over the civil service just waiting for the next President.