Killer Politics (15 page)

Our support of the Karzai government is troublesome, especially in light of widespread election fraud in 2009 and other corruption. Certainly, his approach to social issues does not seem far removed from that of the Taliban. For instance, in 2009, Karzai approved of a new law that allows a husband to starve his wife if she refuses his sexual demands. Meanwhile, I believe the Taliban is every bit as committed to winning as the North Vietnamese were. You have to understand. They view us as invaders, despite the fact that we played a large part in the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. That was more than two decades ago.

Perhaps success can best be measured by making sure the country is forever free of al-Qaeda. Many members of the Taliban regret the association with the terrorists, especially in light of the war it provoked. A Taliban statement in October 2009 said, “We did not have any agenda to harm other countries, including Europe, nor do we have such an agenda today. Still, if you want to turn the country of the proud and pious Afghans into a colony, then know that we have an unwavering determination and have braced for a prolonged war.”

The easy answer is to negotiate an agreement with the Taliban that they keep al-Qaeda out. But even if we can negotiate with the Taliban,
what about their enemies and
our
allies, the Northern Alliance and the Karzai government? The rap on America is that we are not to be trusted. We come in, we prop up a government, and then we abandon it. It happened in South Vietnam, and it certainly happened when we abandoned the mujahideen (holy warriors) in Afghanistan after the defeat of the USSR.

In a perfect world we would broker a truce between the factions and create a stable environment in which credible elections could eventually be held. Perhaps stabilizing the country is the best we can do. But once the country has been stabilized, the United States ought to lead an international effort to rebuild it, starting with hospitals and schools and other infrastructure.

Increasing troop levels in Afghanistan is a tricky and expensive business. A rough White House formula places the cost of a soldier in Afghanistan at $1 million a year. Afghanistan is landlocked, four hundred miles from any port, making it very difficult to supply. Because the Taliban has been able to destroy convoys with such success, 30 to 40 percent of supplies must be airlifted in. According to a
Time
report, under the circumstances, only about four thousand troops can be brought in per month. The Afghanistan surge is intended to stabilize population centers.

I understand the enormous pressure that President Obama is under to regain control of Afghanistan. Allowing the country to disintegrate is not an option—especially in light of the geography, which places it alongside Pakistan and Iran. The border with Pakistan, where al-Qaeda is hunkered down, stretches more than sixteen hundred miles across inhospitable, mountainous terrain. As a matter of perspective, we have been unable to secure a two-thousand-mile border with Mexico.

The importance of Pakistan in the fight against al-Qaeda cannot be understated. If Pakistan is committed to rooting out al-Qaeda, we should not be shy about financing that effort and also supplying them with the military hardware necessary without upsetting the balance of power in the region between Pakistan and India.

Newsweek
reported, “During a long Sunday meeting with President Obama and top national-security advisers on Sept. 13, 2009, the VP [Joe Biden] interjected, ‘Can I just clarify a factual point? How much will we spend this year on Afghanistan?' Someone provided the figure: $65 billion. ‘And how much will we spend on Pakistan?' Another figure was supplied: $2.25 billion. ‘Well, by my calculations that's a 30-to-1 ratio in favor of Afghanistan. So I have a question. Al-Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we're spending in Pakistan, we're spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?' The White House Situation Room fell silent. But the questions had their desired effect: those gathered began putting more thought into Pakistan as the key theater in the region.”

While some past Pakistani efforts to root out al-Qaeda have appeared halfhearted because of support for al-Qaeda in the ranks, more recently the Pakistan Army has been much more aggressive. Tragically, in response, in December 2009, al-Qaeda bombed a mosque where soldiers worshiped, killing thirty-six soldiers and family members.

I believe President Obama is absolutely committed to hunting down al-Qaeda, and if the Pakistan Army does not go after them in Pakistan, we will. This is tricky political terrain…. While the use of unmanned drones to target al-Qaeda along the border is already very unpopular, a full-fledged military operation by the U.S. Army would be even more controversial.

According to a December 21, 2009,
Guardian
report, “American special forces have conducted multiple clandestine raids into Pakistan's tribal areas as part of a secret war in the border region…. A former NATO officer said the incursions, only one of which has been previously reported, occurred between 2003 and 2008, involved helicopter-borne elite soldiers stealing across the border at night, and were never declared to the Pakistani government.”

This much is certain. Before we can give serious thought to getting out of Afghanistan, al-Qaeda must be so badly beaten it is no longer a
threat to Afghanistan or Pakistan. Clearly, though, until that is accomplished, this administration's strategy will be one of relentless pursuit. “We know that Al-Qaeda and its extremist allies threaten us from different corners of the globe—from Pakistan but also from East Africa and Southeast Asia; from Europe and the Gulf,” Obama said in 2009. “And that's why we're applying focused and relentless pressure on Al-Qaeda,” he said. Tactics include improved intelligence-sharing, disruption of terrorism financing, and specific attacks on al-Qaeda's leaders.

Let there be no delusion: This mess won't be wrapped up neatly with pretty ribbons. Our involvement in Afghanistan, and hopefully that of the global community, may well be multigenerational. We need a long-term
global
commitment and strategy to help build, feed, and educate that country. And then we must be prepared to follow bin Laden and his supporters like the hounds of hell to every corner of this earth. Anyone considering an attack on America like the one we endured on 9/11 should understand from our example that their reward will be a miserable, sleepless life on the run, and ultimately death.

GETTING THE DRUG TRADE UNDER CONTROL

One of the major complications to stabilizing Afghanistan is finding a solution to the drug economy in that country. Again,
globally,
we and other nations have to arrive at a solution to the opium trade. If we don't address that problem, it will be difficult to make progress. The estimated $4 billion opium trade funds the Taliban and represents well over half of the country's gross domestic product.

Why not take a page out of the American agriculture playbook? Through the Conservation Reserve Program, we pay American farmers to take some marginal land out of production. It's good for wildlife, which flourishes; it stops erosion, keeps commodities markets from being saturated, and puts money in the pocket of the farmer. Why not simply pay the Afghan farmers more than they make growing opium?
We could very well diminish the strength of the Taliban and shut down a major heroin pipeline in the process.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS IN IRAQ

Now let's consider the unfinished business in Iraq, a preemptive war over fictional WMDs that has claimed the lives of more than four thousand American soldiers. That said, I hope for a successful outcome because I want what is best for my country. But no outcome should ever be used as justification for the deceit the Bush administration used to drum up support for an unnecessary war. I'm glad that Saddam Hussein is out of power—indeed, deceased. Now we have to do our best to see that he is not succeeded by someone worse.

President Obama's goal is for the U.S. combat mission to end in 2010, with a residual force of up to fifty thousand to remain through the following year. General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, warned in 2009 that “the progress there is still fragile and reversible.”

We should harbor no illusions that our soldiers will leave behind any kind of utopia. However, if we can achieve stability in Iraq, we should aggressively help to rebuild the infrastructure through humanitarian efforts. In fact, those efforts will help achieve stability. Again, just as in Afghanistan, I'm talking about a multigenerational effort to improve relations between America and the Iraqi people.

We need to transform the way we think about war. Seemingly, we budget for the destruction, but we fail to properly budget for the cleanup. Instead of just looking for ways to feed the military industrial complex and the military's insatiable need for weaponry, let's take a percentage or two from that budget and set it aside to clean up the messes we have made. If we shifted even 1 percent from our military budget to humanitarian causes, what a message that would send to the rest of the world. We need to balance might with what is right. (It sounds a little
like something Jesse Jackson might say, doesn't it? But I believe it.) Not only does it make sense from a moral perspective, it makes military sense. All too often we look at the perceived cost of humanitarian aid, without considering the bargain it is when measured against the cost of conflict.

AN IRAN PLAN

Now let's take a look at some other global players with whom we have to reckon.

Iran continues to make headlines with its nuclear program. The good news is, Russia seemed to be as concerned as we are about a secret Iranian facility that was revealed in 2009. The amount of leverage that nuclear weapons give a nation is reason enough for existing nuclear powers to want to discourage proliferation. The more fingers on the button, the greater the risk. There is no doubt in my mind that Iran is using the threat that it may acquire nuclear weapons as negotiating leverage, just as North Korea has. Just having the potential for nuclear weapons gives a country a great deal of leverage.

Newsweek
columnist Fareed Zakaria advises, “We should not fear to negotiate with these rulers. [But] the ultimate solution to the problem of Iran will lie in an Iranian regime that understands it has much to gain from embracing the modern world. That doesn't mean Iran would for-swear its efforts to be a regional power…but it does mean that Iran would be more willing to be open and transparent, and to demonstrate its peaceful intentions. It would view trade and contact with the West as a virtue, not a threat. It would return Iran to its historic role as a crossroads of commerce and capitalism, as one of the most sophisticated trading states in history, and a place where cultures mingled to produce dazzling art, architecture, poetry, and prose. This Iran would have its issues with the West, but it would not be a rogue regime, funding terrorists and secretly breaking its international agreements.”

Certainly the hard-line approach of turning the Israeli Air Force loose to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities is a temporary solution akin to knocking a hornet's nest down in your garage. You end up with a bunch of ticked-off hornets looking to sting in all directions.

It's important that this doesn't turn into a United States vs. Iran issue, but one that includes the voices of the international community. I don't think we should be too hasty with sanctions. More moderate leadership may well emerge in Iran in time. Severe sanctions would undermine support for the United States among the Iranian people.

Azadeh Moaveni, a
Time
reporter, wrote in the
Washington Post
in June 2008, “Although their leaders still call America the Great Satan…[it] might startle some Americans to realize that Iran has one of the most pro-American populations in the Middle East. Iranians have adored America for nearly three decades, a sentiment rooted in nostalgia for Iran's golden days, before the worst of the shah's repression and the 1979 Islamic revolution.” Still, Moaveni says, “President Bush's post-9/11 wars of liberation on both of Iran's borders—in Iraq to the west and Afghanistan to the east—rattled ordinary Iranians, and Washington's opposition to Iran's nuclear program—a major source of national pride—added to their resentment.”

Of course, another underlying issue and leading cause of anti-American sentiment and suspicion in the Middle East is the Israeli-Palestinian issue, specifically our support for Israel, which is viewed as our proxy in the Middle East.

In the long run, can Obama do what every other president has failed to do—succeed in brokering peace and a Palestinian homeland in the Middle East? If so, a new era of relative global peace might be ushered in. However, this is something no American president alone can deliver. The Palestinians and the Israelis must both want peace badly enough. What Obama can do is help improve our image in the Middle East, which is no easy task, especially considering the potential for boots on the ground in Pakistani territory.

WHAT ABOUT RUSSIA?

And what about Russia? While politically the country has shown a willingness to be every bit as cantankerous as the old Soviet Union, internally the standard of living has declined, despite the country's role as a global energy superpower. We may not be able to comprehend it, but there is still yearning among some Russians for the “old days” under a more stable communist system. As a newcomer to capitalism, the country is grappling with a disparity in wealth, and with crime and corruption.

Janusz Bugajski, director of the New European Democracies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in an opinion in the
Washington Times:
“Russia remains a serious threat to its weaker neighbors, irrespective of its structural and fiscal weaknesses and overdependence on hydrocarbon revenues. Moscow continues to engage in a policy of subversion and destabilization across the former Soviet empire, especially through its control of vital energy resources.”