My CIC colleague Barney Rubin has an excellent post this morning comparing the recent New York Times and Wall Street Journal [subscribers only, annoyingly] op-eds on Afghanistan, which have sharply divergent perspectives: broadly speaking, half empty and half full respectively. (See also Barney’s mostly approving discussion yesterday of the NYT article.)
But, Barney argues, the half empty / half full metaphor misses the point. The problem with it, he implies, is that the kind of change needed is a transformation that either does or does not take place, and which is therefore not well captured by an incremental ‘steps in the right direction’ image like that of a half full or empty glass.
“We are in Afghanistan to achieve some vital objectives. If we fail to achieve them, no one will give us an ‘A’ for effort.”
True, as the WSJ piece argues, there are more flights between Dubai and Kabul, more mobile phone connections, better roads and agricultural infrastructure, a new university, migrant remittances flowing into the country and – at least according to one US officer – the “wholehearted support” for the US of “85-90% of the population”. On the other hand, as the NYT argues:
. . . Afghanistan’s embattled president, Hamid Karzai, said in Washington last week that security in his country had “definitely deteriorated.” One former national security official called that “a very diplomatic understatement.”
And, Barney goes on, it’s the security situation – so central to whether or not transformation takes place – that the WSJ piece fails to deal with comprehensively. Like the NYT, Barney is worried that essentially half-hearted US engagement Afghanistan may have led to a vital moment of opportunity being missed. He quotes the NYT thus:
When it came to reconstruction, big goals were announced, big projects identified. Yet in the year Mr. Bush promised a “Marshall Plan” for Afghanistan, the country received less assistance per capita than did postconflict Bosnia and Kosovo, or even desperately poor Haiti, according to a RAND Corporation study. . . .
Worse still, the NYT goes on:
In September 2005, NATO defense ministers gathered in Berlin to complete plans for NATO troops to take over security in Afghanistan’s volatile south. It was the most ambitious “out of area” operations in NATO history, and across Europe, leaders worried about getting support from their countries. Then, American military officials dropped a bombshell.
The Pentagon, they said, was considering withdrawing up to 3,000 troops from Afghanistan, roughly 20 percent of total American forces. . .
Three months after announcing the proposed troop withdrawal, the White House Office of Management and Budget cut aid to Afghanistan by a third. . . . American assistance to Afghanistan dropped by 38 percent, from $4.3 billion in fiscal 2005 to $3.1 billion in fiscal 2006, according to a study by the Congressional Research Service. . .
In the spring of 2006, the Taliban carried out their largest offensive since 2001, attacking British, Canadian and Dutch troops in southern Afghanistan.
Hundreds of Taliban swarmed into the south, setting up checkpoints, assassinating officials and burning schools. Suicide bombings quintupled to 136. Roadside bombings doubled. All told, 191 American and NATO troops died in 2006, a 20 percent increase over the 2005 toll. For the first time, it became nearly as dangerous, statistically, to serve as an American in Afghanistan as in Iraq. . .
Among some current and former officials, a consensus is emerging that a more consistent, forceful American effort could have helped to keep the Taliban and Al Qaeda’s leadership from regrouping.
And, Barney continues, both pieces overlook the narcotics issue and underplay the regional dimension:
The Times article does not even deal with narcotics. According to a UN report released in June, Afghanistan’s opium production continued to soar in 2007, accounting for 90 percent of the world’s supply. Helmand Province alone produced more than Myanmar, the world’s second largest producer.
All the flights to Dubai and mobile phones in the world will not defeat the growing insurgency, stabilize the tribal areas of Pakistan where the Taliban and al-Qaida are based, and sustain a government undermined by rampant drug-fueled corruption. International observers agree that stabilizing Afghanistan will require foreign troops for years if not decades, but Afghans will not tolerate the current toll of civilian casualties for years let alone decades, especially when they realize, as reported by Mark Benjamin in Salon.com, that the number results in part from the US counter-terrorism forces using looser rules of engagement than NATO. The Afghan government will never be able to pay for even the current size Afghan National Army, and under current threat conditions it would need a far larger and better equipped one to provide security. The only alternative is to reduce the level of external threat, but destabilization in Pakistan and a US confrontation with Iran could have the opposite effect.
All in all, he concludes:
“The Afghan glass may be half full, a tenth full, or near to overflowing. But it is standing on a very rickety table in an earthquake prone area. It will not matter how full the glass is if the table collapses or one of the region’s unstable tectonic plates suddenly shifts.”
