logo

Tehran:

Esvand 25 / 1402





Tehran Weather:
 facebooktwitteremail
 
We must always take sides. Nutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented -- Elie Wiesel
 
Happy Birthday To:
Sign-up Below...
 
Home Passport and Visa Forms U.S. Immigrations Birthday Registration
 

Obama should rethink Afghanistan - -

By Amir Taheri


Obama should rethink Afghanistan

Amir Taheri


February 5, 2009

IN President Obama's first week in office, the Taliban launched an unprecedented attack, destroying a strategic bridge over the Khyber Pass via which US troops in Afghanistan are supplied from Pakistan.

Although largely ignored by the American media, that was a major coup, demonstrating the vulnerability of US logistics. It may be difficult to supply the added troops that Obama promised for Afghanistan during the campaign.

In any case, sending more US troops may not be the most important change to make in Bush policy. Obama needs to consider what the US national interests in Afghanistan are, and how best to serve them.

The first interest is not to allow Afghanistan to become a haven for terrorists once again. Yet this isn't an exclusively American interest.

Yes, al Qaeda had a clear anti-US agenda - but the US intervention also decimated 60 or so other terrorist groups, including the Taliban, which had never been specifically anti-American before 2001. The US destroyed the Afghan bases of:

* The Chechen rebels - whose losses allowed Vladimir Putin to win his war in Chechnya and become, in effect, the new czar of Russia.

* The Jaish Muhammad (Muhammad's Army) and Lashkar Tayyibah (Army of the Pure), enemies of India fighting for the "liberation" of Kashmir.

* The Al-Sayyaf (The Swordsman) group, which operates in the Philippines.

* The Uighur Liberation Front, which has fought China's "occupation" of East Turkestan (Xingjian) since the '40s.

Again, none had ever manifested anti-American sentiments. (Indeed, the Uighurs' main information office was in Washington until 2002.) So Russia, India, the Phillipines and China all benefited greatly from the US intervention.

Other groups suffering near-mortal blows from the US intervention had goals centered on Uzbekistan, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Yemen, Libya, Egyptian and Pakistan.

Plus, the Americans helped kill or capture 200-plus jihadists of European nationality who'd gone to Afghanistan to prepare for "reconquest," first of Spain and then of the rest of the old continent.

In short, preventing terror groups from again using Afghanistan as a base for operations against other nations was never an exclusively American interest and is less so today.

Rather than increasing American sacrifices unilaterally, President Obama should ask all countries that have benefited from the US intervention in Afghanistan to make contributions (in blood and/or treasure) commensurate with their gains.

Obama should also realize that supporting a highly centralized presidential system in Afghanistan - a country that has always been a loose federation of ethnic and religious communities - is in not the best interests of the United States. He should urge an amendment of the Afghan constitution to transform the nation into a parliamentary democracy with federal structures.

The US has no interest in fighting for the current ruling elite - which, regardless of the merits of its members, has little grass-roots support. This is all the more so because that elite, mired in corruption, has developed a "room service" mentality, depending on the Americans to do all the work.

The United States has no interest in denying large segments of Afghan society a share of power simply to please the elite that has been artificially created, mostly out of former exiles, since the fall of the Taliban.

Afghanistan is holding elections this year and this could provide an opportunity to press for constitutional amendments to broaden the base of the government and create an all-inclusive system, as is the case in Iraq today.

Many groups now fighting in Afghanistan are disgruntled Pushtun tribes and clans that resent their exclusion from power, and have no particular animosity toward the United States. In Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus showed the Arab Sunni tribes that America was not their enemy. A similar policy could do wonders in such parts of Afghanistan as Helmand, Arzangan and Kunar.

Except for the remnants of al Qaeda and a few Iranian-financed Puhstun groups, almost all fighting groups could be woven into the fabric of a new, federal Afghanistan.

What is needed is a political project, not a military plan to send more troops - who could become trapped in endless guerrilla war with their supply routes under increasing attack.

Such a project should be time-specific: The US should agree to bear the brunt in Afghanistan for a set period during which specific political moves are made.

Even then, the US military presence should be focused on building the new Afghan military - a task that has not received the attention it merits. In 1950-51, the Americans created a new army of almost half a million in South Korea within 10 months. It is surprising that they've failed to do the same in Afghanistan in seven years. (The new Afghan army has an effective force of 40,000, mostly to protect the new elite.)

A timetable envisaging the withdrawal of all foreign troops by 2014 seems realistic. That would enable Afghanistan to amend its Constitution, hold two sets of elections, create a new coalition government and complete the construction of its new army and security apparatus.

Given vision and perseverance, the war in Afghanistan could be won, as it was in Iraq.



    
Copyright © 1998 - 2024 by IranANDWorld.Com. All rights reserved.