November 5th, 2009 by Zack

Aryn Baker has written an article in Time asking if the U.S. can win in a Karzai-led Afghanistan and discusses the debate over the eventual success of the Obama administration’s attempts to push President Karzai into reform.

In the debate over troops levels and U.S. strategy there have been several calls to withdraw and several more to refocus efforts towards Afghan tribes.  Charles V. Peña with National Interest Online and Kathleen Troia “KT” McFarland of Fox News both write that the U.S. should withdraw from Afghanistan immediately and “leave Afghanistan to the Afghans.”   Charles A. Kupchan and Steven Simon at the Council on Foreign Relations argue that the U.S. should scale back the mission in Afghanistan by focusing on consolidating control in strategically important locations from which the military can conduct COIN missions and build the Afghan police and army.  Adam Garfinkle writes in Middle East Strategy at Harvard that given General McChrystal’s plan is not large enough to win a political agreement and end the war within 24 months, the U.S. must choose between Iran and Afghanistan.   He argues that President Obama must withdraw from Afghanistan in oder to not lose face militarily in front of the Iranians, which would embolden them to build a nuclear weapon and destabilize Iraqi security and the region as a whole.

The NY Times lays out the arguments for focusing military efforts on strengthening the role of tribes.  Some proponents include Steven Pressfield and Maj. Jim Gant who argue that Afghan tribes initially pushed out the Taliban and that the U.S. should redeploy special forces to maintain security in conjunction with tribal groups.  Patrick Porter, however, warns that tribalism is very complicated and that focusing on a cultural war, rather than focusing on technological supremacy to defeat the Taliban, is too broad a perspective while the Taliban are blurring the ideas of culture.

These debates come on the heels of Taliban attack on a U.N. guesthouse in Kabul, forcing the U.N. to relocate 600 employees until safer compounds can be established. 

Posted in Afghanistan, Diplomacy, Elections, Military, Reform, Taliban, US foreign policy |