What Obama Didn’t–And What We Should–Learn From The War In Afghanistan

By Barry Rubin

I am in favor of a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, but I was fascinated–in a negative way–with how President Barack Obama handled the issue. He didn’t deal with any of the real issues or the consequences. It was a speech by someone who doesn’t understand what’s been going on in Afghanistan or the world generally, a man with no real background in international affairs or military matters.

Let’s review briefly. The United States attacked Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban government that was involved in the September 11 attack on America and to wipe out al-Qaida, the group that did the attack, in that country. At some point, the mission was mistakenly changed into an inevitably failed nation-building effort.

The American effort was handicapped by:

-The difficulty of the terrain and society, probably the most difficult to transform into a modern democracy of any country in the world. A key problem was also the deeprootedness of radical Islamism in the society and worldview of the population.

–The lack of a strong Afghan ally and instead working with a weak, corrupt, disorganized Afghan government whose power was very much limited by ethnic and factional disputes as well as the local authority of strong warlords.

–The ignorance of Americans about Afghan society, their (praiseworthy but counterproductive under local conditions) moral restraint, their handicap as infidels, and their inability to deal with–or even discuss honestly–the Islamism problem.

–Sabotage by a highly paid Pakistani government much of which is on the side of the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida.

None of these points was dealt with by Obama and it is quite possible he doesn’t understand them, especially because he followed the absurd nation-building, win-hearts-and-minds strategy for 2.5 year and put generals in command who advocated it.

No matter how courageous and competent were the U.S. soldiers there, they could not convert Afghanistan into a stable, democratic, modern society.

Nor has he suggested new srategies to cope with these issues. All he’s doing is withdrawing, a move that is going to be domestically popular. Again, the United States should withdraw but what are its strategic goals in doing so, what is its post-troop strategy?

The U.S. priority should be simple: keep the Taliban out of power; kill and destroy al-Qaida wherever it rears its head. How to do that? Pay off and back tough forces in Afghanistan who, also for their own interests, will fight these enemies. Use pressure on Pakistan to get the most out of that false ally. None of that was analyzed either.

Thus, the American people were given no useful information and the Obama Administration has no real strategy. When one watches the administration’s approach, it only confirms the idea that this government is totally incompetent and much of it has no grasp of international affairs, realpolitik, or military issues. And those in the White House simply don’t listen to those in the State and Defense departments who do.

Incidentally, something truly amazing happened after Obama’s speech that I’ve seen reported but not highlighted. Generals interviewed on the record at the Pentagon stated that they thought they could work with the plan though there were concerns the pace of withdrawal might endanger troops. In other words, high-ranking officers publicly criticized the president’s strategy albeit in a framework of being nominally supportive. I’ve never seen anything like this before and it is a measure of how truly upset the U.S. military command must be at Obama’s handling of issues. A few years from now this will come out in books and people will be astonished by the military’s anger and incredulity at Obama’s policies.

For 2.5 years, then, Obama followed the wrong policy in Afghanistan. Now he is revising the policy in a politically dictated manner but without any broader vision. And most of the mass media, in its rush to reflect and confirm Obama’s glory, missed all of these points.

But there are three more points that must be mentioned. First, there is the kind of thing that marks the difference between ordinary incompetence and the dangerous incompetence of the Obama White House. This president has opened negotiations with the Taliban–against the will of the Afghan government!–claiming that part of it is moderate.

In other words, just as it helped bring down Egypt’s government against the will of America’s Arab allies and is helping the Palestinian Authority against Israel’sinterests, and been supportive of Venezuela against America’s Latin American friends, and let Russia get away with misbehavior against U.S. friends in Central Europe and the south Caucasus, he’s doing the same thing with Afghanistan.

Ordinary incompetence is not fully protecting one’s own interests. The Obama version is voluntarily and actively to undermine one’s own interests. That’s the difference between this president and all of his predecessors, including the worst of them.

Second, Obama’s “solution” is to turn over the war to the Afghan government. But that’s a fantasy. The Kabul regime–incontrast to Iraq’s government–is incapable of taking up that burden. It will either collapse–Obama no doubt hopes only after the 2012 election–or lose control of everything outside the capital. I remember a conference I was at in [city deleted] when a pompous fool spoke [name deleted] spoke of how great the war was going and then a brilliant Afghan-American analyst [name deleted] tore him apart with detail after detail showing that the central government was a joke.

Obama thus offered a solution that he should know is simply not true. Thus, he is either mendacious or incompetent. One day the situation will explode in his face or that of his successor.

Finally, Obama called for a priority on nation-building at home in a way that would have led to accusations of isolationism if any Republican had said it. Yet the time for that speech was in January 2009. Who but Obama has been throwing money not only into Afghanistan and Iraq but even extended the overstretched military into a totally unnecessary war in Libya? Who raised spending–not just spending but, far worse, unproductive spending–in the face of a depression and these wars? Who followed a failed policy in Afghanistan for 2.5 years and even intensified that wrong approach?

When a president makes a speech and changes policy, it should be on the basis of what the chief executive has learned and it should be a teachable moment for the general public. Yet Obama isn’t holding anything back; he just doesn’t understand any of these things himself and cannot either pick the right people to advise him or listen to those who give good advice.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are teased and other articles are available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.    

US Ambassador To Afghanistan Gov't "Stop Calling Us Occupiers!"

The Afghan Government tries to have it both ways. On one hand they are happy that the United States is there to protect their fledgling government and to stop the Taliban from taking over, on the the other their leadership continually trashes the American Heroes protecting their country.  Just this past Saturday Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai delivered a televised speech accusing the  U.S.-led foreign troops of being in the country “for their own national interests.”

Without mentioning Karzai by name, US Ambassador Afghanistan,  Karl  Eikenberry made his own speech on Sunday, blasting the  increasingly harsh anti-coalition rhetoric emanating from the president, calling it “hurtful and inappropriate.” The ambassador, made the remarks at the end of a speech on the future of U.S.-Afghan relations, delivered to several hundred students at Herat University, but the message was meant for Karazi an his team:

“When Americans, who are serving in your country at great cost in terms of lives and treasure, when they hear themselves compared with occupiers, told that they’re only here to advance their own interest, and likened to the brutal enemies of the Afghan people, my people in turn are filled with confusion and they grow weary of our effort here,” Eikenberry said

Eikenberry said those comments left him ashamed and speechless in front of the relatives of U.S. war dead.

"When I hear some of your leaders call us occupiers, I cannot look at these mourning parents, spouses, and children in the eye and give them a comforting reply," Eikenberry told an audience of students and academics at Herat University in western Afghanistan.

"When we hear ourselves being called occupiers and worse, our pride is offended and we begin to lose our inspiration to carry on," he added

The Ambassador's comments are long past due. Karazai's statement on Saturday was simply the latest in a long line of anti-American comments made by the Afghan President:

But Karzai's spokesman said some of the president's comments had been misunderstood and warned against "over-reacting" to constructive criticism, saying that Afghan people standing up for their own interests should not be dubbed offensive.

Sure why is it offensive that our heroes are in Afghanistan dying so Karzai's arse will be protected and in return all they get is trash talk.

A video of Eikenberry's comments follows (if you cannot see video click here)

The Myth That the Mainstream Media Helps Us Understand The World

By Barry Rubin

People ask me why I write so much and I explain that I don’t want to do so but keep coming across such important events, missed stories, and outrageous nonsense that I feel compelled to say something. So it is in this case.

Here’s the problem: a remarkable amount of what's written on the Middle East in the mass media—and certainly the efforts to analyze it as opposed to reporting events—is nonsensical. It makes the region harder to understand. It misleads the reader.

An example is Anatol Lieven, “5 Myths about Pakistan,” Washington Post, June 5, 2011. Lieven is a professor at Kings College London and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. He has just written a book on Pakistan.

One of the techniques often employed in the creation of the Fantasy Middle East is to misstate totally the issues at stake. Note the use of that technique in Lieven's article.

Alleged Myth One: Pakistan is a U.S. ally in the war on terrorism.”

Pakistan, he writes, just follows its own interests. Sometimes it’s helpful and sometimes it isn’t. Fair enough, that’s what allies generally do. But the policy question is: whether Pakistan is helpful often enough to merit being treated like an ally and given huge amounts of aid. The answer is”no.” Neither the question nor the answer is addressed.

Incidentally, it’s pretty outrageous that Lieven suggests that Pakistan supports the Taliban because India is inciting other groups in Afghanistan to seize power. Yet since Pakistan’s policy has been the same for 30 years--it has long supported radical Islamist forces in Afghanistan--how can India be to blame for relatively recent policies? To bash India for Pakistan's behavior in Afghanistan is absurd.

If a country supports to a major degree the two groups that attacked America on September 11—the Taliban and al-Qaida—plus is a major sponsor of terrorism against India, the answer to question 1 isn’t “Sometimes” but "Definitely not!"

Alleged Myth 2: ”Pakistan is an ally of the Taliban.”

Again, Lieven turns this into a “straw man” argument. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t, he says. But the real answer is "yes," if one is talking about the Afghan Taliban, which is what the United States is mainly concerned about! It is only an enemy of the [Pakistani] Taliban that tries to take over Pakistan. So, again, Pakistan IS an ally of the [Afghan] Taliban, the group--along with al-Qaida--that the United States gives it billions of dollars to fight against!

Alleged Myth 3: “Islamist revolution is coming to Pakistan.”

Why is this a myth? Because, says Lieven, less than one-fifth of Pakistanis view the Taliban favorably in a poll. As if, that’s the only Islamist group! He cites one Pew poll number but other polls and other questions show a remarkably high level of support for Islamism among Pakistanis. Putting such a spin on one item and leaving out others verges, to put it politely, on deliberate dishonesty.

Indeed, a recent Pew poll shows that Pakistanis support Islamism by a whopping 47 to 15 percent margin. Thus, this argument that Pakistanis don't want Islamism is a total myth. That's why Lieven misrepresents the issue to "prove" that Pakistanis don't want the Taliban's specific brand of Islamism.

I'm not saying that Pakistan will have a radical Islamist revolution. But it is certainly possible. If Turkey and Egypt can become Islamist, surely Pakistan could do so.

Alleged Myth 4 “Massive U.S. aid lets Washington dictate Pakistani policy.”

This one really made me angry. Nobody seriously argues such a thing. The real issue is whether the large amount of aid and support the United States gives Pakistan provides some American leverage to get Pakistan to do things that the United States wants and needs to be done. If this aid does no good at all then it shouldn’t be given in the first place.

The correct formulation is: Does giving Pakistan massive aid provide Washington with any ability at all to have the slightest effect on Pakistani policy.” If billions of dollars cannot even get them to help find Usama bin Laden what good are they?

Alleged Myth 5 “Pakistan, not Afghanistan, is the front in the war on terrorism.”

The front? I don’t know anyone who says this either. That's just a phony issue. The real question is: Does Pakistan provide really positive aid in fighting terrorism or not? But if one frames the question in that way the answer is not likely to be in the affirmative, which is presumably why this question isn't asked.

So what’s the bottom line? The author writes what he's been setting up for that entire misleading essay:

“None of this means that the United States should pursue more aggressive policies against Pakistan to win the war on terrorism….Any U.S. action that endangered the stability of the Pakistani government would be insane.”

In other words, U.S. policy is just fine and there's no need to change anything. Who cares if they support the Taliban, hide al-Qaida leaders, and launch terrorist attacks on India? Just keep sending them money and keep giving them support.

Precisely the same argument has and will be used to rationalize such things as:

U.S. aid and support to the Palestinian Authority (even if it refuses to negotiate or make peace and brings Hamas into the government);

Turkey (despite its regime's growing support for Iran,

Syria (the regime supposedly wants to reform itself and you can't expect it to abandon the alliance with Iran so who cares if they shoot down thousands of unarmed citizens and help terrorist groups along with opposing U.S. policies and interests);

Lebanon (even if Hizballah will be in the government and the country is dominated by Syria and Iran);

and no doubt soon Egypt (with a radical nationalist-Islamist regime that will be against the United States.

You can easily adjust the five "myths" to suit each circumstance. Indeed, if Iran's leaders didn't keep "stubbornly" refusing to make some phony deal on their nuclear program the Obama administration and many "experts" would no doubt be advocating the same ideas about Iran, too.

Why was that article written? Like so many, to turn something obvious through "sophistication" into a brain-dead conclusion. Let's state it briefly to make the point stand out:

High-ranking elements in Pakistan have just got caught hiding Usama bin Ladin, the world's number-one wanted terrorist who killed 3000 Americans on September 11and have repeatedly been caught helping bin Ladin's enablers, the Afghan Taliban, and terrorists murdering people in India. No apology, no investigation, no change of policy by Pakistan.

The expert recommendation? U.S. policy toward Pakistan shouldn't change at all.

This is the foolishness dressed up with deception and double-talk that so often substitutes for serious debate in America's mass media today.

I would call the kind of article I'm analyzing here not only “misinformation” but ”anti-information.” In other words, the person reading it would be worse informed afterward than they were beforehand!

And the same goes for much—most? Almost all?—of the material of this nature in the mass media. Not only do we face this propaganda barrage but contrary opinions are generally  barred from mass media publication or broadcast altogether.

What I've done with this article and others can be done with many of the items on the Middle East that appear daily in prestigious publications. It's not just about getting details wrong, it's about total misdirection. A few minutes of serious analysis can totally demolish what they are saying while exposing their hidden (wrong) assumptions.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.