November 13th, 2009 by Jason

President Obama rejected accusations of dithering yesterday, insisting that he will decide on a strategy soon that will not entail an “open-ended” commitment to Afghanistan. Secretary Gates also confirmed, “we’re getting toward the end of this process.”

That process was thrown a curve ball when someone leaked confidential cables from Ambassador Eikenberry that argued against a troop increase (see our previous post).  Andrew Exum fumes that “whoever leaked these classified cables has cut the knees out from underneath the most important U.S. representative in Kabul” by poisoning the relationship between Eikenberry and Hamid Karzai (h/t Daily Dish). Michael Cohen at Democracy Arsenal contends the anger of some military officers over Eikenberry’s lack of support is ironic given that Eikenberry is doing exactly what General McChrystal’s report demands: evaluating whether we have the legitimate Afghan partner we need to succeed.

As Fred Kaplan reiterates, “if the government is particularly corrupt or incompetent, it won’t be able to build on the security wrought by a good counterinsurgency campaign, thus nullifying our success and sacrifice.” President Obama is therefore seeking ways to circumvent the central government and support provincial leaders instead.  In fact, corruption runs rampant in Afghanistan, as explained by an Al Jazeera English clip linked to by Juan Cole. But there have been success in Afghanistan as well, as a New York Times  article on the National Solidarity Program shows. The program provides direct grants to village councils for development projects instead of relying on the corrupt central government or overpriced foreign contractors.

Geoffrey Kemp in the National Interest warns that a counterterror strategy neglects the “fight for democratic universal values, such as women’s rights,” that has constituted the primary motivation for our European partners in Afghanistan.  Therefore, if President Obama “lowers the bar on reform and universal values, then many Europeans will ask what’s the point of being there?” Citing the failures of the Soviets, Deepak Tripathi insists at Cole’s Informed Comment blog that the U.S. should forgo a counterinsurgency strategy in favor of allowing the development of democratic institutions and processes, fighting corruption, encouraging the rule of law, and building modern schools. The Soviet precedent is also on the mind of Matthew Yglesias, who posted an interesting map of the Soviet “ink spots” of control just prior to their withdrawal.

Finally, Rich Lowry at the Corner warns against the President micromanaging the Afghan war: “no plan so finely tuned from on high is going to survive its first contact with reality.” Instead, the president should support a “dumb” Afghan strategy and let the implementers be “savvy and adaptive.”

Posted in Afghanistan, Democracy Promotion, Diplomacy, Foreign Aid, Human Rights, Middle Eastern Media, Military, Multilateralism, Reform, Secularism, Taliban, US foreign policy, US politics, al-Qaeda |