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Monday, 21 September 2009
US should quit Afghanistan
Afghanistan’s presidential election was held on Aug 20. Immediately before and after this date, a substantial amount of attention was dedicated to chronicling the latest phase of this war-torn country’s ‘reconstruction’.
Afghanistan’s presidential election was held on Aug 20. Immediately before and after this date, a substantial amount of attention was dedicated to chronicling the latest phase of this war-torn country’s ‘reconstruction’.
Implicit in much of the media coverage was that Afghanistan is on the way to re-entering the comity of nations and that, to use George W Bushspeak, the epic battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ will continue until the Afghan people are completely liberated from the scourge of ‘terrorism’.
Barack Obama’s administration has attempted to do much to exorcise the ghosts of his predecessor’s reign. The ‘war on terror’ has been conspicuously eliminated from official statements, while a great deal of emphasis has been placed on ‘reconciliation’ with the Muslim world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has gone out of her way to emphasise that the administration wants to re-establish normalcy in the Middle East and south-west Asia, and the fact that warmongering will be replaced with peacemaking.
But just as the euphoria of President Obama’s coming to power within the United States fades, the rigidities of American foreign policy are also being exposed. Notwithstanding the administration’s peace rhetoric, violence in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan - the acronym ‘Afpak’ has become common parlance in Washington - has increased dramatically. And the Afghan presidential election that was supposed to be Mr. Obama’s first major foreign policy victory is very quickly becoming his biggest liability.
The fact of the matter is that foreign occupation, regardless of how the media spins it, is always likely to be deeply unpopular. Afghanistan was widely depicted as a special case in 2001 when the Americans invaded, but after eight long years during which very little has improved (instead, things have gotten a lot worse on a number of accounts), the age-old adage about occupation is being proven right.
Whereas in Iraq sectarian conflict has become acute in the years since 2003, in Afghanistan the partiality of the occupying forces has intensified ethnic divisions in society. The Taleban government that the Americans toppled in 2001 drew its primary sources of support from the majority Pakhtun ethnic group and in the eight years since the American invasion, Taleban insurgents have succeeded in at least maintaining and, some would argue, enhancing their popularity in Pakhtun areas.
This is not to suggest that the prevailing sentiment among the numerous non-Pakhtun minorities is unambiguously pro-American or anti-Taleban, but only to note that, by its very nature, military occupation generates divisive rather than unifying dynamics.
Then there is Pakistan. The insurgency is based primarily in the south-east of Afghanistan, the border region with Pakistan. Given the Pakistani state’s long association with the Taleban, and the nebulous nature of the border arrangements, the insurgents are virtually impossible to pin down.
One of Mr. Obama’s first initiatives was to put pressure on the Pakistani military to prove its commitment to the fight by taking on militants in the Swat region of Pakistan’s Pakhtun-majority North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
The administration ostensibly viewed the Swat operation as the first of many required to eliminate Taleban safe havens within Pakistan. The Pakistani and international media have proclaimed the Swat operation to have been successful, but the feeling on the ground is distinctly less positive.
At least 2 million people were displaced from their homes, and even though many are said to have returned, there is no conclusive evidence that militancy or safe havens - high up in the Himalayan ranges - have been eradicated.
Indeed, Mr. Obama appears surprisingly unwilling to acknowledge what his predecessor learnt the hard way: that the use of force to subdue foreign populations is, more often than not, completely counter-productive. Those who lose relatives or their own limbs in indiscriminate aerial bombings - still the preferred military option of both the Americans and Pakistanis - flock to the side of the militants, even if they are otherwise opposed to the ideas that the militants represent.
This is as true in Pakistan as it is in Afghanistan and it appears that the only explanation for Washington’s insistence that the Pakistanis expand military operations in their own country is that the Americans are desperate in the face of the quagmire that they themselves have created in Afghanistan.
Clearly, establishing a lasting peace in Afghanistan and the wider region is easier said than done. The multitude of competing interests involved - Russia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan and the Central Asian states all have something at stake in the ongoing geopolitical struggle - means that there is no straightforward solution.
In this vein, the first step might be for the Americans to accept that they cannot rule the roost in this region and that developing a consensus between all regional powers is the very minimum required for a semblance of stability.
If Washington is serious that the unilateralism of the Bush years needs to be replaced by a more inclusive multilateral approach, there is no better place to start than Afghanistan.
Mr. Obama now has to contend with growing public opposition to the Afghan war within the US. To be sure, Americans voted for change and President Obama has not produced very much on the foreign policy front so far.
It scarcely matters that a presidential election took place in Afghanistan on Aug 20. The turnout was low, the credibility of the election itself is subject to serious doubt, and the incumbent Hamid Karzai has hardly distinguished himself over these past few years.
Mr. Karzai’s fall from grace has at least been gradual. If Mr. Obama does not find deeds to match his illustrious oratory skills, his fall from grace will be much more dramatic.
The writer is assistant professor of political economy at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad
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US should quit Afghanistan
By AASIM SAJJAD AKHTAR
18 September 2009
Afghanistan’s presidential election was held on Aug 20. Immediately before and after this date, a substantial amount of attention was dedicated to chronicling the latest phase of this war-torn country’s ‘reconstruction’.
Implicit in much of the media coverage was that Afghanistan is on the way to re-entering the comity of nations and that, to use George W Bushspeak, the epic battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ will continue until the Afghan people are completely liberated from the scourge of ‘terrorism’.
Barack Obama’s administration has attempted to do much to exorcise the ghosts of his predecessor’s reign. The ‘war on terror’ has been conspicuously eliminated from official statements, while a great deal of emphasis has been placed on ‘reconciliation’ with the Muslim world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has gone out of her way to emphasise that the administration wants to re-establish normalcy in the Middle East and south-west Asia, and the fact that warmongering will be replaced with peacemaking.
But just as the euphoria of President Obama’s coming to power within the United States fades, the rigidities of American foreign policy are also being exposed. Notwithstanding the administration’s peace rhetoric, violence in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan - the acronym ‘Afpak’ has become common parlance in Washington - has increased dramatically. And the Afghan presidential election that was supposed to be Mr. Obama’s first major foreign policy victory is very quickly becoming his biggest liability.
The fact of the matter is that foreign occupation, regardless of how the media spins it, is always likely to be deeply unpopular. Afghanistan was widely depicted as a special case in 2001 when the Americans invaded, but after eight long years during which very little has improved (instead, things have gotten a lot worse on a number of accounts), the age-old adage about occupation is being proven right.
Whereas in Iraq sectarian conflict has become acute in the years since 2003, in Afghanistan the partiality of the occupying forces has intensified ethnic divisions in society. The Taleban government that the Americans toppled in 2001 drew its primary sources of support from the majority Pakhtun ethnic group and in the eight years since the American invasion, Taleban insurgents have succeeded in at least maintaining and, some would argue, enhancing their popularity in Pakhtun areas.
This is not to suggest that the prevailing sentiment among the numerous non-Pakhtun minorities is unambiguously pro-American or anti-Taleban, but only to note that, by its very nature, military occupation generates divisive rather than unifying dynamics.
Then there is Pakistan. The insurgency is based primarily in the south-east of Afghanistan, the border region with Pakistan. Given the Pakistani state’s long association with the Taleban, and the nebulous nature of the border arrangements, the insurgents are virtually impossible to pin down.
One of Mr. Obama’s first initiatives was to put pressure on the Pakistani military to prove its commitment to the fight by taking on militants in the Swat region of Pakistan’s Pakhtun-majority North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
The administration ostensibly viewed the Swat operation as the first of many required to eliminate Taleban safe havens within Pakistan. The Pakistani and international media have proclaimed the Swat operation to have been successful, but the feeling on the ground is distinctly less positive.
At least 2 million people were displaced from their homes, and even though many are said to have returned, there is no conclusive evidence that militancy or safe havens - high up in the Himalayan ranges - have been eradicated.
Indeed, Mr. Obama appears surprisingly unwilling to acknowledge what his predecessor learnt the hard way: that the use of force to subdue foreign populations is, more often than not, completely counter-productive. Those who lose relatives or their own limbs in indiscriminate aerial bombings - still the preferred military option of both the Americans and Pakistanis - flock to the side of the militants, even if they are otherwise opposed to the ideas that the militants represent.
This is as true in Pakistan as it is in Afghanistan and it appears that the only explanation for Washington’s insistence that the Pakistanis expand military operations in their own country is that the Americans are desperate in the face of the quagmire that they themselves have created in Afghanistan.
Clearly, establishing a lasting peace in Afghanistan and the wider region is easier said than done. The multitude of competing interests involved - Russia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan and the Central Asian states all have something at stake in the ongoing geopolitical struggle - means that there is no straightforward solution.
In this vein, the first step might be for the Americans to accept that they cannot rule the roost in this region and that developing a consensus between all regional powers is the very minimum required for a semblance of stability.
If Washington is serious that the unilateralism of the Bush years needs to be replaced by a more inclusive multilateral approach, there is no better place to start than Afghanistan.
Mr. Obama now has to contend with growing public opposition to the Afghan war within the US. To be sure, Americans voted for change and President Obama has not produced very much on the foreign policy front so far.
It scarcely matters that a presidential election took place in Afghanistan on Aug 20. The turnout was low, the credibility of the election itself is subject to serious doubt, and the incumbent Hamid Karzai has hardly distinguished himself over these past few years.
Mr. Karzai’s fall from grace has at least been gradual. If Mr. Obama does not find deeds to match his illustrious oratory skills, his fall from grace will be much more dramatic.
The writer is assistant professor of political economy at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad
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