Page 1 of 2 DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA Obama's AfPak flip-flop
By Tom Engelhardt
On stage, it would be farce. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, it's bound to play
out as tragedy.
Less than two months ago, President Barack Obama flew into Afghanistan for six
hours - essentially to read the riot act to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whom
his ambassador had only months before termed "not an adequate strategic
partner". Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen followed within a
day to deliver his own "stern message".
While still on Air Force One, National Security Adviser James Jones offered
reporters a version of the tough talk Obama was
bringing with him. Karzai would later see one of Jones's comments and find it
insulting. Brought to his attention as well would be a newspaper article that
quoted an anonymous senior United States military official as saying of his
half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, a reputedly corrupt powerbroker in the
southern city of Kandahar: "I'd like him out of there ... But there's nothing
that we can do unless we can link him to the insurgency, then we can put him on
the [target list] and capture and kill him." This was tough talk indeed.
At the time, the media repeatedly pointed out that Obama, unlike his
predecessor, George W Bush, had consciously developed a standoffish
relationship with Karzai. Meanwhile, both named and anonymous officials
regularly castigated the Afghan president in the press for stealing an election
and running a hopelessly corrupt, inefficient government that had little power
outside Kabul, the capital. A previously planned Karzai visit to Washington was
soon put on hold to emphasize the toughness of the new approach.
The administration was clearly intent on fighting a better version of the
Afghan war with a new commander, a new plan of action, and a well-tamed Afghan
president, a client head of state who would finally accept his lesser place in
the greater scheme of things. A little blunt talk, some necessary threats, and
the big stick of American power and money were sure to do the trick.
Meanwhile, across the border in Pakistan, the administration was in an
all-carrots mood when it came to the local military and civilian leadership -
billions of dollars of carrots, in fact. Our top military and civilian
officials had all but taken up residence in Islamabad. By March, for instance,
Mullen had already visited the country 15 times and US dollars (and promises of
more) were flowing in. Meanwhile, US Special Operations Forces were arriving in
the country's wild borderlands to train the Pakistani Frontier Corps and the
skies were filling with Central Intelligence Agency-directed unmanned aerial
vehicles pounding those same borderlands, where the Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda
and other insurgent groups involved in the Afghan war were located.
In Pakistan, it was said, a crucial "strategic relationship" was being
carefully cultivated. As the New York Times reported, "In March, [the Obama
administration] held a high-level strategic dialogue with Pakistan's
government, which officials said went a long way toward building up trust
between the two sides." Trust indeed.
Skip ahead to mid-May and somehow, like so many stealthy insurgents, the
carrots and sticks had crossed the poorly marked, porous border between
Afghanistan and Pakistan heading in opposite directions. Last week, Karzai was
in Washington being given "the red carpet treatment" as part of what was termed
an Obama administration "charm offensive" and a "four-day love fest".
The president set aside a rare stretch of hours to entertain Karzai and the
planeload of ministers he brought with him. At a joint news conference, Obama
insisted that "perceived tensions" between the two men had been "overstated".
Specific orders went out from the White House to curb public criticism of the
Afghan president and give him "more public respect" as "the chief US partner in
the war effort".
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton assured Karzai of Washington's long-term
"commitment" to his country, as did Obama and Afghan war commander General
Stanley McChrystal. Praise was the order of the day.
John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, interrupted a
financial reform debate to invite Karzai onto the senate floor where he was
mobbed by senators eager to shake his hand (an honor not bestowed on a head of
state since 1967). He was once again our man in Kabul. It was a stunning
turnaround: a president almost without power in his own country had somehow
tamed the commander-in-chief of the globe's lone superpower.
Meanwhile, Clinton, who had shepherded the Afghan president on a walk through a
"private enclave" in Georgetown and hosted a "glittering reception" for him,
appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes to flay Pakistan. In the wake of an inept
failed car bombing in Times Square, she had this stern message to send to the
Pakistani leadership: "We want more, we expect more ... We've made it very
clear that if, heaven forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to
Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe
consequences." Such consequences would evidently include a halt to the flow of
US aid to a country in economically disastrous shape. She also accused at least
some Pakistani officials of "practically harboring" Osama bin Laden. So much
for the carrots.
According to the Washington Post, McChrystal delivered a "similar message" to
the chief of staff of the Pakistani army. To back up Clinton's public threats
and McChrystal's private ones, hordes of anonymous American military and
civilian officials were ready to pepper reporters with leaks about the tough
love that might now be in store for Pakistan. The same Post story, for
instance, spoke of "some officials ... weighing in favor of a far more muscular
and unilateral US policy. It would include a geographically expanded use of
drone missile attacks in Pakistan and pressure for a stronger US military
presence there."
According to similar accounts, "more pointed" messages were heading for key
Pakistanis and "new and stiff warnings" were being issued. Americans were said
to be pushing for expanded special operations training programs in the
Pakistani tribal areas and insisting that the Pakistani military launch a major
campaign in North Waziristan, the heartland of various resistance groups,
including al-Qaeda. "The element of threat" was now in the air, according to
Tariq Fatemi, a former Pakistani ambassador, while in press reports you could
hear rumblings about an "internal debate" in Washington that might result in
more American "boots on the ground".
Helpless escalation
In other words, in the space of two months the Obama administration had
flip-flopped when it came to who exactly was to be pressured and who reassured.
A typically anonymous "former US official who advises the administration on
Afghan policy" caught the moment well in a comment to the Wall Street Journal.
"This whole bending over backwards to show Karzai the red carpet," he told
journalist Peter Spiegel, "is a result of not having had a concerted strategy
for how to grapple with him."
On a larger scale, the flip-flop seemed to reflect tactical and strategic
incoherence - and not just in relation to Karzai. To all appearances, when it
comes to the administration's two South Asian wars, one open, one more hidden,
Obama and his top officials are flailing around. They are evidently trying
whatever comes to mind in much the manner of the oil company BP as it
repeatedly fails to cap a demolished oil well 1,500 meters under the waves in
the Gulf of Mexico. In a sense, when it comes to Washington's ability to
control the situation, Pakistan and Afghanistan might as well be 1,500 meters
underwater. Like BP, Obama's officials - military and civilian - seem to be
operating in the dark, using unmanned robotic vehicles. And as in the Gulf,
after each new failure, the destruction only spreads.
For all the policy reviews and shuttling officials, the surging troops, extra
private contractors and new bases, Obama's wars are worsening. Lacking is any
coherent regional policy or semblance of real strategy - counter-insurgency
being only a method of fighting and a set of tactics for doing so. In place of
strategic coherence there is just one knee-jerk response: escalation. As
unexpected events grip the Obama administration by the throat, its officials
increasingly act as if further escalation were their only choice, their fated
choice.
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