The general and his Afghan labyrinth
By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON - The leak of the "initial assessment" of the war in Afghanistan by
General Stanley A McChrystal, the top commander in the war, with its blunt
warning that "[f]ailure to provide adequate resources" is likely to result in
"mission failure", was part of an obvious effort to force the hand of a
reluctant President Barack Obama to agree to a significant increase in US
troops.
The version of the classified McChrystal assessment published on the Washington
Post website on Monday has many redactions, indicating that it had been
prepared especially for the purpose of leaking it the press.
What may be even more important about McChrystal's assessment, however, is that
it presents a highly discouraging
picture of the situation in Afghanistan - and that the Integrated
Civilian-Military Campaign Plan for Afghanistan to which he had agreed just
three weeks earlier was even more pessimistic than his "initial assessment".
The integrated campaign plan, signed by McChrystal and ambassador Karl
Eikenberry on August 10, said that popular rejection of the Afghan government
in the Pashtun region of the country is already so pronounced that "key groups"
are supporting the Taliban as the only available alternative to a government
they regard as abusive.
The integrated campaign plan is marked "Sensitive but Unclassified" and has not
been released to the public but Inter Press Service has obtained a copy.
Both documents acknowledge fundamental socio-political realities that raise
serious questions about the feasibility of the counter-insurgency program that
McChrystal outlines in his assessment, but McChrystal's assessment altered or
softened some central conclusions of the integrated campaign plan.
The most important difference between the two documents is their conclusion
about how much popular support the insurgents have already gained. The
McChrystal assessment suggests that the insurgents have been unable to obtain
uncoerced popular support.
"Major insurgent groups use violence, coercion and intimidation against
civilians to control the population," the assessment says. It concludes that
"popular enthusiasm" for the Taliban and other insurgent groups "appears
limited, as does their ability to spread beyond the Pashtun areas".
Pashtuns are by far the largest ethnic group in the country, with 40%-45% of
the population, and predominate across most of Afghanistan's territory, from
the far west across the entire south to the east.
While denying popular support for the insurgency, however, McChrystal admits
that some factors, such as "a natural aversion to foreign intervention" and
tribal and ethnic identities that are reinforced by "historical grievances"
have resulted in "elements of the population tolerating the insurgency and
calling to push out foreigners".
The integrated campaign plan goes further, suggesting that the Taliban have
gotten support because they are seen as the only feasible alternative to an
abusive government. It notes that most Afghans reject the "Taliban ideology",
but concludes, "Key groups have become nostalgic for the security and justice
Taliban rule provided."
The two documents use different terms to describe the political failure of the
Afghan government and its consequences. The McChrystal assessment refers to a
popular "crisis of confidence" in the government. But the integrated campaign
plan calls it a "crisis of legitimacy" and says the insurgents have "derived
some legitimacy by appealing to ideological affinities and fears of 'foreign
occupation' as well as in quick provision of local justice."
The two documents also differ on what progress can be expected in carrying out
an ambitious agenda for change outlined in the integrated campaign plan.
McChrystal's assessment simply presents the broad strategy and the objectives
that must be achieved in regard to providing security, increasing Afghan
government security forces and reform of governance. It does not consider the
risks or likelihood of failure in regard to any of these objectives.
The integrated campaign plan, however, does consider risks and the possibility
of failure. It makes the identification of corrupt local officials and
punishing them or changing their behavior a priority objective, for example.
But it also warns that the Afghan government and its warlord allies in the
provinces, who have no real interest in changing the status quo, may well be
able to frustrate such efforts at reform. The plan even suggests President
Hamid Karzai might "replace several effective government officials with
ineffective or corrupt individuals".
It raises the possibility that "dashed hopes" about reducing Afghan government
corruption could create a "backlash" against the International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF).
Another risk anticipated by the plan is that the Afghan elections of August 20
would be "widely viewed as unfair" and would lead to "a political crisis and/or
increased perception of GIRoA [Government of the Islamic Republic of
Afghanistan] illegitimacy". Reporting during the month since the election
suggests that such an expectation was quite realistic.
Although it clearly pulls its punches on some key issues, the McChrystal
assessment nevertheless contains some remarkably candid language for an
official document - let alone one clearly intended to justify the escalation of
the war.
McChrystal acknowledges the problem of warlords - referring to them as "local
and regional power brokers" - who have autonomy from the government and in some
cases hold positions in the Afghan National Security Forces, particularly the
Afghan National Police.
He also refers to the fact that ISAF has "relationships" with the warlords,
these "individuals", meaning that foreign military contingents have many
contracts with them to provide security services and rely heavily on them for
intelligence.
Those relationships, McChrystal observes, "can be problematic". For one thing,
he observes, the Afghan public perceives the ISAF as "complicit" in official
Afghan abuses of power.
This degree of realism about the fundamental socio-political conditions bearing
on the success or failure of a counterinsurgency war found in both the
McChrystal assessment and the integrated campaign plan is highly unusual, if
not unparalleled, in US military policymaking. In this case, it apparently
helped precipitate a crisis in US Afghan policy.
Along with the blatantly fraudulent election run by Karzai's regime and the
sharp downturn in domestic US political support for the war in Afghanistan, the
fundamental obstacles to success discussed candidly in the two documents were
part of the context of Obama's skepticism about McChrystal's troop request.
Thus they contributed to his decision to engage in what one senior
administration official has called "a very, very serious review of all
options", according to the report by Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karen DeYoung in
the Washington Post on Monday.
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing
in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book,
Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was
published in 2006.
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