This is the second draft of this column. I had to scrap the first one and start over. In this respect — since the column was intended to be about Afghanistan — there is a strange similarity between my predicament and that of Barack Obama.
He too is wondering whether to scrap everything and start over. And he too has a case of decider’s block. This is not the same as paralysis. It is a recognition of the enormous difficulty of figuring out what to do this autumn. And so, last week, in almost a textbook reversal of George W Bush’s decision-making process, the administration wrestled as transparently and as honestly as it could with the enormously vexing bad options he has to choose from.
I have to say I find this process reassuring, as I find General Stanley McChrystal’s candour and good humour the latest indication that he is the right man for the job. If only Bush had allowed his generals this much leeway and this much transparency.
The near-impossible least-worst option remains maddeningly elusive. If I were to approach this from an ideological perspective or simply as a political assessment of Obama’s short-term domestic interests, I could probably come to a swift conclusion. My Tory pessimism tells me that, after a war now as long as Vietnam, this is a hopeless endeavour.
This is not just Afghanistan; it’s Afghanistan after 30 years of violence, mayhem, brutality and anarchy. To believe that America can create a functioning, stable state in that context seems insane to me, and given America’s fiscal crisis and profound public unease at deepening the commitment, a reckless bet on the future with a large increase in troops seems a definition of unwise. It would be, in some ways, the inverse of the Colin Powell doctrine: an open-ended commitment with no clear political goals in a wilderness that has destroyed every army that tried to subdue it. Yes, American forces have learnt a huge amount about counterinsurgency and even a hard-nosed, fat-free force of nature like McChrystal has finally understood that you cannot kill and torture and terrify to victory.
I’ve had some deep worries about McChrystal — most particularly the war crimes in Iraq that took place on his watch — and was appalled that he was allegedly threatening to resign if he didn’t get his way. It seems clear now that he never actually threatened to resign, and those who leaked that non-fact were trying to bounce him as much as the president. His speeches and comments last week in London seem to me to speak very highly of him, just as his bluntness in public and private suggest a man serious about winning this war. On a human level, anyone who can recite whole sections of Monty Python and the Holy Grail by heart is all right with me.
I worry, however, that his analysis — “all in or all out” — is not quite right. I’ve relied on this formula myself in the past, but every time I follow through in my head the consequences of either path, I end up feeling deeply uncomfortable. Letting Afghanistan unravel still further, with the ramifications for Pakistan’s knife-edge struggle with Islamism, is a risk few American presidents would willingly take. More important, it is a risk we cannot adequately assess in the context of a bewilderingly fluid set of conflicts in the Middle East.
Here are some of the factors we do not fully understand right now. Pakistan’s military is on the verge of a large offensive against the Taliban. We don’t know what the outcome of that will be. The election in Afghanistan is unresolved, with serious and credible allegations of fraud and the possibility of a run-off or any number of unforeseen developments. Again, we do not know the outcome of that.
Iraq, still home to almost 130,000 US troops, is far from stable and could descend into sectarian anarchy when the US leaves. There are some encouraging signs there — especially Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s inclusion of Sunni groups in his new coalition and an apparent resurgence of national unity as a theme in the current campaign. If Iraqis are finally ready to leave the past behind, if the bloody chaos of the worst years has shifted that national psyche, that would indeed be miraculous. Bloody civil wars can do that (it was true of the English civil war and the 30 years’ war): they can finally persuade a population that compromise really is better than the alternative. Once the general population believes that, and there is a halfway credible national government willing to support them, a pivot can occur. We may not be there in Iraq, but it would be insane, after the immense sacrifice and carnage of the past few years, to dismiss the possibility that disaster could be avoided.
Of course, anyone boldly predicting triumph in Iraq needs his head examined. The truth is: we do not know the outcome of that either, and since the US has limited resources, and has already pummelled the troops beyond what most mortals could tolerate, Obama should be cautious about overextension in very volatile regions. Shifting a large number of troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan is a risk to Iraq and potentially a disastrous strategic call.
So what to do? In a moment of immense unpredictability and fluidity, it seems that muddling through for a while may be an unsatisfying but sensible option. Marc Lynch, as shrewd a foreign policy analyst as exists in Washington, put the case very well last week: “Why choose between escalation or withdrawal at exactly the time when the political picture is at its least clear? Why not maintain a lousy Afghan government which doesn’t quite fall, keep the Taliban on the ropes without defeating it, cut deals where we can and try to figure out a strategy to deal with the Pakistan part, which all the smart set agrees is the real issue these days? Why not focus on applying the improved counterinsurgency tactics with available resources right now instead of focusing on more troops? If the American core objective in Afghanistan is to prevent its re-emergence as an Al-Qaeda safe haven, or to prevent the Taliban from taking Kabul, those seem to be manageable at lower troop levels.”
In other words, meticulously prepare for either the McChrystal counterinsurgency surge or a more low-key counterterrorism campaign. But right now, hold on to see what emerges after the results of the imminent Pakistani military campaign in Waziristan and after we know more about the post-election position in Afghanistan.
The time for a deep strategic call may not, in fact, be now. It will, for sure, be soon. But in wars and politics, timing is everything.
www.andrewsullivan.com
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