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| Afghanistan |
| Obama's Afghan Struggle |
| 2009-03-21 |
| By FOUAD AJAMI We face today the oddest and most unexpected of spectacles: On its sixth anniversary, the Iraq war has been vindicated, while the war in Afghanistan looks like a hopeless undertaking in an impossible land. This is not what the opponents of the Iraq war had foreseen. After all, Afghanistan was the good war of necessity whereas Iraq was the war of "choice" in the wrong place. The Afghan struggle was in truth a rod to be held up in the face of the Bush administration's quest in Iraq. Some months ago, Democratic Party strategist Robert Shrum owned up to this fact. "I was part of the 2004 Kerry campaign which elevated the idea of Afghanistan as the 'right war' to conventional Democratic wisdom. This was accurate as criticism, but also reflexive and perhaps by now even misleading as policy." The opponents of the American project in Iraq did not know much about Afghanistan. They despaired of Iraq's sectarianism and ethnic fragmentation, but those pale in comparison with the tribalism and ethnic complications of Afghanistan. If you had your fill with the Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shiites of Iraq, welcome to the warring histories of the Pashtuns, the Uzbeks, the Tajiks, and the Hazara Shiites of Afghanistan. In their disdain for that Iraq project, the Democrats and the liberal left had insisted that Iraq was an artificial state put together by colonial fiat, and that it was a fool's errand to try to make it whole and intact. Now in Afghanistan, we are in the quintessential world of banditry and tribalism, a political culture that has abhorred and resisted central authority. Speak of colonial fiat: It was the Pax Britannica that drew the Durand Line of 1892 across the lands of the Pashtuns and marked out a meaningless border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It should have taken no great literacy in the theories and the history of "state-building" to foresee the favorable endowments of Iraq and the built-in disadvantages of Afghanistan. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #9 Unfortunately, Pakistan is required as a supply route for NATO forces. If Obama is serious about increasing the Afghan security forces to 400,000, things will turn around in Afghanistan as they did in Iraq. |
| Posted by: Apostate 2009-03-21 19:05 |
| #8 George Bush didn't have the force of character to do that job President Bush didn't have the troops or the equipment for two wars at the same time, Old Patriot. He only made what he had do the trick for one war and a holding situation by rotating the troops through the battlefield entirely more often, and for longer durations, than was advisable, while upsizing the Armed Forces as quickly as Congress would allow. George W. Bush has many faults, but lack of character is not one of them. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-03-21 16:06 |
| #7 Ajami has been all over the map with his pontifications, most of which are about as relevant as Amidinnerjacket's. I gave up reading him years ago. The truth is, there were dozens of good reasons to go into both Afghanistan and Iraq. The problem in Afghanistan isn't so much what Ajami wails about, but the constant interference and even open war by the Pakistanis against anyone they see disturbing their "special relationship" with Afghanistan - that of master to slave. By providing sanctuary to the taliban in the Tribal Areas, Pakistan should have lost any support they had from the West, and been eliminated as a political entity. The West won't be successful in Afghanistan until that's done. George Bush didn't have the force of character to do that job, and Obambi is a narcissistic deer in the headlights. Hillary is just a power-hungry egomaniac. The next four years are going to be "interesting times" for our military. Keep 'em in your prayers - they're gonna need 'em. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-03-21 15:03 |
| #6 Will Iraq, as forseen above, become the cancer that will destroy the tyrants of the Middle East? Gawd, I hope so. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2009-03-21 12:12 |
| #5 The decision on Iraq must wait for many years. If it becomes a reasonably stable and prosperous democratic state the key question arises. Will Iraq, as forseen above, become the cancer that will destroy the tyrants of the Middle East? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2009-03-21 10:13 |
| #4 Afghanistan was the good war of necessity whereas Iraq was the war of "choice" in the wrong place Iraq was indeed the war of "choice', but it was chosen because it was in the RIGHT place, as opposed to a logistical nightmare like A'stan. The enemy was and is the same - militant Islam - which makes it a good and necessary war regardless of the ground it is fought on. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2009-03-21 09:46 |
| #3 It should have taken no great literacy in the theories and the history of "state-building" to foresee the favorable endowments of Iraq and the built-in disadvantages of Afghanistan. The Prophet Ajami might take a moment to point to his own published views to this effect. Provided they were in fact published several years ago. Otherwise, my 20/20 hindsight needs no instruction from his. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2009-03-21 07:45 |
| #2 I wonder what the current and recently retired senior Army officers who hated Rumsfeld (and did what they could to oppose the administration as a result) are thinking right about now. |
| Posted by: lotp 2009-03-21 06:44 |
| #1 Very insightful assessment. Most interesting how Obama is hoist on his own petard. I was always of a mind that it would take a generation at least to assess the significance of Iraq because we are too close to the events to give it a proper perspective. But it seems that in the midst of all of his domestic mess, the moderate derision with which Obama is beginning to be held will in time infect his foreign adventures and assessments. The considered world view of Bush and Iraq may still take a long time but the contrasts are so striking just 7 weeks into the new administration that I am now waiting for the first opponent of the Iraq adventure to begin to offer a more balanced view. |
| Posted by: Omoter Speaking for Boskone7794 2009-03-21 02:08 |