Obama's Afghanistan plan fraught with risks

The history of wars shows it is an established strategy to intensify military action before achieving a decent withdrawal. Hence, there is nothing new in US President Barack Obama's Afghan plan to deploy 30,000 additional soldiers by next summer. What is new and has created doubts in the US as well as elsewhere in the world is how effective will the strategy prove.

Obama's plan, discussed and drawn over months, is a product of conflicting opinions and interests within the US, says Zhang Xiaodong, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. It reflects not only the situation on the battlefields in the Hindu Kush, but also the struggles in US domestic politics.

Mounting Taliban attacks prompted the Pentagon to ask for more troops, to which the president agreed. But to placate the American public, frustrated and demoralized by eight years of a fruitless war, he had to announce that the US would begin withdrawing its troops in July 2011.

By issuing a date for scaling down its military presence in Afghanistan Obama has risked undermining the effectiveness of the surge in troops. Realizing that the maximum deployment of US forces, to reach 100,000 after the reinforcements, will at best last a year, the Taliban could adopt a hit-and-run strategy, avoid direct showdown with the Americans.

The fact that Taliban fighters can cross the Afghan-Pakistani border freely makes the situation even more complex, says Ma Xiaolin, a commentator on international affairs and the president of www.blshe.com. Taliban fighters could sneak into Pakistan and wait for the US withdrawal before launching a major attack against the Afghan government forces. So without a synchronized cooperation from Pakistan, the surge in US troops could be in vain.

Though Obama has promised a strategy that "works on both sides of the border" and closer coordination with Pakistan, his planned date of pullback may make Pakistan hedge its bets on fighting the Taliban. Afghan and Pakistani officials have already expressed concern over the US withdrawal, which means the prospects of cooperation may not be very promising.

To reassure US allies as well as opposition at home, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that July 2011 would be the "beginning, not the end" of the withdrawal, saying that only "some small number will begin to withdraw at that time". But his words could make Obama's plan look more ambiguous, and perplex US allies in Kabul and Islamabad.

The stabilization of security in Afghanistan would eventually depend on a political solution, Zhang and Ma say. Military actions alone won't work. The Taliban movement is rooted in the tribal areas and partly represents the political clouts and interests of the Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group. Talking with the Taliban, at least its relatively moderate wings, is crucial for a sustainable political solution.

Obama seems to have realized that it would be difficult for the US to eliminate the Taliban, and hence seeks to confine its goals to "disrupting, dismantling and defeating Al-Qaida and its extremist allies". It indicates that the US is going to fight the Taliban hardliners who are closely linked to Al-Qaida, while keeping open the option of negotiating with its moderate wings.

Ma believes military actions will help reach a political solution. With the substantial reinforcement, the US is seeking to crush the belligerent elements in the Taliban on the battlefield, divide the group, force the moderate wings to talk and then use its victories to pressure them at the negotiation table.

But the new US strategy is fraught with risks because even Taliban hardliners could pretend to be moderates and try to negotiate a political agreement, only to regain political control once the American troops withdraw.

The strategy incorporates schemes to bolster the civilian and the military apparatus of the Hamid Karzai government, such as pairing similar number of Afghan army personnel with US troops to prepare them for the challenge ahead. Though the schemes sound good, people have reason to doubt whether the US could achieve its goal and hand over the responsibility to the Afghan government, which has been marred by corruption, cronyism and incompetence. We should know that not a single central government has effectively ruled over the entire territory of Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion three decades ago.

Fu Xiaoqiang, a researcher with the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, says it will be a long and daunting task for the Afghan government to build a competent national army to keep the Taliban at bay and take over security from US forces. Hence, even after July 2011, we cannot expect large contingents of US forces to withdraw from Afghanistan. The majority may stay back and fight for a long time.

But that will be a heavy burden on the US government, which is likely to have a $1.8-trillion budget deficit next year and public debts that are almost equal to its GDP.

Obama has to do something on Afghanistan's economic front, too. Zhang says it is an urgent task to lessen the Afghan economy's dependence, especially in the outlying regions, on poppy cultivation. Jobs have to be created. Only if there is an improvement in welfare will the Karzai government win the popular support of the people, which is a prerequisite for the US handover.

Economic development in the tribal areas could dent the support for the Taliban there. Ma says many youths have joined the Taliban mainly for money. Otherwise they would have no means to feed themselves. Sometimes, Taliban fighters get a higher pay than even Afghan army personnel, he says. If decent and stable jobs were available, many of them would not have joined the Taliban.

It is still unclear, however, whether the US will be able to foot the bills for Afghanistan's economic reconstruction and development.

The surge in troops may cost $30 billion next year alone, and hence it will be a big problem for the US to raise its spending.

Though Obama is an excellent orator, the effectiveness of his plan is in doubt. As a patchwork seeking to please every stakeholder, both at home and abroad, it might prove futile and end up satisfying nobody, expect the Taliban.

(China Daily 12/09/2009 page9)