Tag: United States
Has anyone really read the Afghanistan report?
I’ve been hoping all day to offer analysis of the Afghanistan strategy review, but I can’t find the full text. That hasn’t stopped anyone else.
So far as I can tell, everyone is commenting on the five-page “overview” as if they’ve read the whole thing. The Washington Post tells you it hasn’t seen the whole report. PBS Newshour doesn’t make any claims, but doesn’t post the whole report, so I’ve reached my own conclusion. Democracy Arsenal claims to have read the thing, but then says nothing that hints at content beyond the five pages. So I thought I should say a few words on why it is not a good idea to comment based on an overview.
The overview is 80 per cent spin. The higher ups in the U.S. Government don’t do a lot of rummaging around in paragraph 178 of a report, but they do look at what is more commonly called the “executive summary.” And they make sure it says what they want it to say, whatever is in the report. Then they get that five pager out to the press and commentators (some of them get it earlier than others of course) in the often justified hope that they can keep the news coverage on side.
The most important part of any government report is what it does not say. You can’t really tell that from the summary, overview or whatever you want to call it. But I’ll guess: judging from this “overview,” it says nothing about corruption and lack of legitimacy of the Karzai government; it says relatively little about local governance and economic development; it says little about lack of cooperation from Pakistan or negotiations with the Taliban.
I don’t really see how a strategy review can be useful (except for PR purposes) without dealing with those issues, so I’m inclined to give this one a failing grade, without having seen it. But that wouldn’t be fair, would it? Maybe we should all withhold judgment and give ourselves some time to read the whole thing, calmly and thoughtfully.
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Afghanistan: love it and leave it
National Security Network Executive Director Heather Hurlburt and General Paul Eaton in Politico today offer a very sensible eight points of broad agreement among recent reports on Afghanistan. As I was about to have a look through them to determine where they agreed and disagreed, I find this timely and useful.
Meanwhile, the New York Times is busy leading the effort to make news of supposed differences between the intelligence community and the military on how successful the Afghanistan “surge” is. This is silly, as the author of the article acknowledges in the fine print: the cut-off date for the intel assessment is earlier than for the military assessment, and in any event intel analysts are paid to anticipate problems while military people are paid to solve them.
Eaton and Hurlburt (caveat emptor: she is married to my first cousin once removed) are playing the better game, even if they fail to deal with my favorite question: is Karzai worth it? Their eight points add up to this: however successful the military “surge,” we need to negotiate a way out (with all deliberate speed, as the Supreme Court would say) with support from the neighbors, having done what we can to improve local governance, revive the economy and train the Afghan security forces, thus leaving behind a regime that will not harbor transnational terrorists.
They talk about “political progress,” but it is unclear what they mean by it. Maybe this is code for President Karzai cleaning up his, and his government’s act, or maybe it is progress in the reconciliation department, which is the label generally given to efforts to bring the Taliban in from the cold. Or maybe it also covers efforts to get Pakistan to take stronger action against the Taliban. Hurlburt and Eaton accept the judgment of several of the reports that failure to make progress should lead to quicker withdrawal and conversion to a counter-terrorist (i.e. kill the terrorists from afar) rather than a counter-insurgency (i.e. protect and serve the population up close) effort.
At this point, I don’t see any chance that the Administration will change its timeline, which will begin turnover of security responsibilities to the Afghans next July and aim to complete the process by the end of 2014. The NATO decision boxed us in to that schedule, which is what the Administration presumably wanted. It seems to have had the great virtue of removing Afghanistan from the domestic political debate, which is no place for rational discourse and decisionmaking these days.
What we could use now–tomorrow’s publication of the Administration “review” would be a good moment to start–is an honest assessment of where we stand on the main factors to which Hurlburt and Eaton point: negotiations with the Taliban, cooperation by Afghanistan’s neighbors, strengthening of local governance and the economy, buildup of the Afghan security forces. A bit on why Karzai merits $120 billion per year and the lives of American soldiers and civilians would be useful too.
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Iraq’s security, now and future, in the balance
Asharq Alawsat reminds us that the important Ashura holy day, which for Shia Muslims commemorates the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali at the battle of Karbala in 680, occurs this week (starting Wednesday evening through Thursday afternoon). The holiday is often marked by security problems in Iraq as pilgrims converge on Karbala (in the millions) and on Shia sites throughout the country. Jerry Bremer interrupted a meeting with my colleagues and me during Ashura in March 2004 when one of the first suicide bombings in Baghdad produced a loud detonation audible in his office.
This year for the first time Iraqis will be unequivocally in charge of security arrangements throughout the country during Ashura. If the Iraqis are able to control the situation effectively, it will mark an important step forward. If they fail, it will irritate inter-sectarian relations and complicate the government formation process, which is struggling to make its Christmas eve deadline.
In the meanwhile, the Americans seem to be dropping their studied indifference and have begun, according to David Ignatius, pressing the Iraqis (Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen was in Baghdad yesterday) to sign up to a longer-term strategic relationship with the United States, one that would presumably allow U.S. troops in some number to remain past the current end 2011 deadline to help train and support the Iraqi security forces. This, too, could complicate the government formation process, since the Sadrists–a vital part of Maliki’s proposed coalition–have vigorously opposed the U.S. military presence and will have a hard time approving an agreement to have it remain.
The Sadrists changed their minds on supporting Maliki, but that decision was precipitated by a change of heart in Tehran. It is hard to see how Tehran is going to want the Americans to remain in Iraq, but it is possible that the Sadrists will bend for the sake of gaining a strong position in the new government. And the Sadrists I’ve talked with want the Americans to fix Iraq, by adequately arming security forces not unfriendly to them, before they head for the exits.
Ironically, if Ashura passes relatively peacefully, the Iraqis may see less need for a continued American presence. If however pilgrims are attacked as in the past, they may see more need for the foreigners.
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Richard Holbrooke: an appreciation in spite of myself
Dick Holbrooke and I had a contentious relationship. He didn’t like things I said about policy issues in private and wrote in public, and (incorrectly) thought I was disloyal and out to get him. I thought he was too often unappreciative, egotistical and unnecessarily hard on people who had served him well, including me.
But you have to admire his gumption and achievements. He dared to imagine bringing an end to the war in Bosnia, and he did it. He turned around a flagging civilian effort in Afghanistan, even if it still cannot claim success. As UN ambassador, he solved the delicate and vexing problem of US arrears. In each of his many jobs, he got difficult things done, sometimes breaking crockery along the way.
He could also be extraordinarily charming. I first met him in Rome, where I was deputy chief of mission. Before a meeting with Italian bankers, he took me aside and asked me what was on their minds. He then spun a standard briefing into an appeal to their needs–I don’t know if it won the bank he was with any business, but it was a great pitch. And you should have heard him admire Pamela Harriman’s painting collection!
Dick was concerned–many would say obsessed–with correcting what had gone wrong in Vietnam. He thought American power should be a force for good, and he set out to make it so. Our odds of achieving that are lower now that he is gone.
Listen to Jackie Northam’s appreciation on NPR.
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Too early to declare a South Sudan success
Rift Valley Institute (Aly Verjee) updates a previous paper on just-in-time preparations for referenda in Southern Sudan (January 9) and in the border area Abyei, where no progress has been made and the referendum there will clearly be postponed.
While I share Michael Gerson’s enthusiasm for the American officials working on getting Sudan right, it is clearly too early to declare an Obama foreign policy win in South Sudan, as his headline writer did (reflecting accurately the contents of the op/ed). There is a long and difficult road ahead that could be upset by violence, political games, logistical difficulties, technical incompetence, interference from neighbors and miscalculation by Khartoum or Juba. The American officials of course know that better than I do.
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Diplomatic ballet with Iran
While Tehran is touting its “superior” position in talks with the P5+1 Monday and Tuesday in Geneva and asserting that the nuclear issue is settled, reality looks different from Washington. While no one seems to think the Geneva meeting made any substantive progress, insiders think sanctions are biting, due to an unusual degree of US/EU common resolve as well as tacit cooperation from money centers in the Middle East. The recent seizure of Iranian ships in Singapore is possibly related to sanctions.
Lady Ashton at least thought the Iranians agreed to meet again (in January in Istanbul) to discuss nuclear questions, but the Iranians denied it. If the Iranians refuse to meet again, or continue to claim that nuclear issues can’t be discussed, Washington and Brussels will need to consider ratcheting up the sanctions, which are said to have already denied Tehran the overt use of dollars, euros and pounds in international transactions.
Tightened sanctions could however have unintended consequences: they need to be targeted on the leadership and avoid hurting ordinary Iranians and strengthening the hand of the Iranian government against its opponents, at least some of whom might want Tehran to adopt a more flexible approach on the nuclear issue.
Diplomats generally call this walking a tight rope. I prefer the ballet analogy. Or is it all really just a soap opera?
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