Joe Klein wrote an oped piece today about the Afghan war. In it, he bemoans the lack of mission that is leading America into greater and greater peril in Afghanistan: “What are we doing in Afghanistan? What is the mission? We know what the mission used to be – to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and destroy his al-Qaeda command.”
The new mission, of course, is to do all that while simultaneously building up a prosperous and stable Afghanistan so that it becomes the next Germany or Japan – where consumerism takes hold and people don’t care about things like history or culture or tribal warfare, instead, they care about buying stuff. There was some logic to that, but it lacked historical insight, says Klein:
“The Taliban and al-Qaeda can’t base themselves in Afghanistan if something resembling a stable, secure nation-state exists there. But the mission was also historically implausible: Afghanistan has never had a strong central government. It has been governed for thousands of years by local and regional tribal coalitions. The tribes have often been at one another’s throats – a good part of the current “Taliban” uprising is nothing more than standard tribal rivalries juiced by Western arms and opium profits – except when foreigners have invaded the area, in which case the Afghans have united and slowly humiliated conquerors from Alexander the Great to the Soviets.”
So now Afghanistan, after seven years of intervention, is a failed state. The “Taliban,” which Klein correctly describes as “an array of mostly indigenous narco-jihadi-tribal guerrilla forces,” are now in control of about three-quarters of the country, the drug trade continues to thrive providing 90% of the world’s opium, and most importantly, citizens continue to distrust the government given its rampant corruption and the lack of basic services outside Kabul. So what is Obama to do when he takes over?
Beside agreeing with the President-elect’s premise that he should send more troops into Afghanistan, Klein goes off and takes a dive into the same murky and bellicose waters that got America into this mess in the first place. He says: “President-elect Obama needs to deliver the blunt message to the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan that we will no longer tolerate their complicity in the deaths of Americans and our allies, a slaughter that began on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and continues to this day.” How does Obama put a stop to this “slaughter?” Bring on Richard Holbrooke as a special envoy to the region and “lay down the law” in Islamabad and Kabul. Tell the two countries that America will no longer tolerate the Afghan corruption or the Pakistani support for the Jihadis. Of course. When nothing else works, continue with the course.
Earlier, Klein seemed to be on to something when he mentioned that Afghans have been living the way they do for thousands of years and that it would be wise of America to learn from the historical lessons left behind by empires of the past: Afghans don’t take kindly to belligerent foreigners trying to impose their will on Afghanistan. But then Klein, not wanting to sound like a defeatist, offers the exact opposite advice and tells the next President to be even more forceful! That’ll get it done. After all, coming back with our tails between our legs isn’t an option. Besides, we don’t negotiate with terrorists.
