Debunking the Rationale for War in Afghanistan

After the Bush administration
went to war based on charges of WMD programs that were later found to
have been nonexistent, you would think there would be a strong demand
for a thorough examination of the strategic rationale the next time an
administration proposes a new war or a major escalation of an existing
one.

Yet there has been no public examination of the Obama administration
strategic argument that the United States must do whatever is necessary
in Afghanistan to ensure that al Qaeda cannot have a safe haven there.
The assumption seems to be that that there is no need to inquire about
the soundness of that premise, because al Qaeda planned the 9/11
terrorist attacks from Afghanistan.

But the rationale for U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan that
seemed obvious in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks no longer applies
today. Osama bin Laden and the central al Qaeda organization left
Afghanistan in late 2001 for Pakistan, where they have now established
an even more secure base than they had in Afghanistan, thanks to the
strong organization of Islamic militants in the Northwest tribal region
of Pakistan. So the real al Qaeda safe haven problem is not about
Afghanistan but about Pakistan.

Instead of candidly acknowledging that the al Qaeda safe haven
problem is located in Pakistan, however, Barack Obama's first major
statement on the war in Afghanistan sought to obscure that problem.
Obama said, "[W]e have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle,
and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their
return to either country in the future."

That made it sound like al Qaeda still has a base in Afghanistan.
The "White Paper" of his Interagency Policy Group, however, contradicts
that formulation. It states the U.S. goal as "to disrupt, dismantle,
and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent
their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan." Obama's suggestion that U.S.
forces are somehow fighting to defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan marks the
first clear instance of playing fast and loose with the facts in order
to increase the very weak public support for the war.

If the real problem is ending an al Qaeda safe haven in Pakistan,
then going to war in Afghanistan makes sense only if one assumes that
al Qaeda is going to be pushed out Pakistan or in danger of being
destroyed there. The real question, therefore, is whether there is any
realistic possibility that the Pakistan government can shut down al
Qaeda's safe haven.

The honest answer must be that the possibility is vanishingly small
-- at least for next generation. A report on Pakistan by a panel of
experts headed by John Kerry and Chuck Hagel and published by the
Atlantic Council last month provides a detailed analysis that suggests
why it is so unlikely. It describes a Pakistani army that is
demoralized and lacking a viable strategy for dealing with the
burgeoning jihadi movement in the Northwest tribal region which has
sheltered al Qaeda. It recalls how Pakistan was on the brink of
economic collapse last fall, and was forced by the IMF to accept a
crippling austerity plan. And it warns that a military takeover is
likely if dramatic steps are not taken in the coming year, and that the
military leadership is no better prepared than civilian politicians to
cope with the country's problems.

Pakistan is not even on the U.S. side in its war against al Qaeda and the Taliban, as was confirmed by a report in the The New York Times March
25. Despite previous pledges that ISI, the Pakistani military's
intelligence agency, had ended its covert assistance to the Taliban,
The Times detaiIs ISI 's continuing provision of "money,
military supplies and strategic planning guidance" to Taliban
commanders fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Ambassador Richard
Holbrooke and CENTCOM chief Gen. David Petraeus conceded in an
interviews with PBS that Pakistani assistance to the Taliban is a
central problem and that trying to get the Pakistani military to end
its support for the Taliban is their highest priority.

But the idea that the Obama administration's "regional strategy" is
going to change a Pakistani strategic fixation on India that has
persisted ever since the Pakistani military was created is nothing but
wishful thinking. No less an enthusiast for war in Afghanistan than
neoconservative military analyst Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise
Institute testified at a House subcommittee hearing Thursday that the
Pakistani Army actually defines itself in terms of the threat from
India and opined that It would require "a multi-generational effort" to
change that perspective.

As for closing down al Qaeda's sanctuary in Pakistan, a report by Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post from
Pakistan last September showed that U.S. intelligence had no human
assets in the tribal region, and that Pakistani military was doing
nothing to change that. CIA Director Leon Panetta's statement that
drone bombing attacks "are probably the most effective weapon we have
to try to disrupt al Qaeda right now" is a pretty good indication that
there is little chance of the United States rolling up al Qaeda in
Pakistan unilaterally.

The war in Afghanistan is being justified, in effect, as a
"preventive war," but the contingency it is supposed to prevent -- an
al Qaeda base in Afghanistan -- is one that that isn't going to occur,
regardless of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. In that regard, the
rationale for this war is very much like the rationale for the invasion
of Iraq, which was that the United States had to prevent the
acquisition by Saddam Hussein of a nuclear weapon.

Although the war in Afghanistan cannot solve the al Qaeda problem in
Pakistan, it can accelerate the destabilization of Pakistan and
strengthening the jihadi movement there. Even air attacks by drone
aircraft in Pakistan, which is now settled U.S. policy, create a
powerful political backlash in favor of the militants in Pakistan. But
once the administration's "regional" approach to changing Pakistani
policy stalls, we can expect growing pressure from the military to
resume U.S. Special Operations forces cross-border raids against
Taliban sanctuaries inside Pakistan. And that would certainly lead to
more serious destabilizing developments, such as increased ideological
splits within the Pakistani military. The National Intelligence Council
warned the Bush administration about the near certainty of such
consequences last August, as I reported for IPS September 9.

The administration's rationale for escalating war in Afghanistan
does not stand up to careful examination. Not only is Afghanistan not a
war of necessity, as it is being portrayed by the administration; it is
a war that is very likely to make the terrible mess in Pakistan
substantially worse and increase the likelihood of spreading chaos in
that country.