Afghanistan war demands new expectations
| Saturday, Oct 17 2009 08:58 PM
Last Updated Saturday, Oct 17 2009 08:58 PM
Americans tend to think of political stability and government-managed civil order as interchangeable concepts. Reciprocal definitions, redundant when placed in the same sentence.
And, indeed, they are more or less synonymous -- when the context is Western. But not in Afghanistan. Not when the army and police are the least important institutions of authority within those vast, Texas-sized borders. Not when the concept of democracy is as foreign to Afghans as a tribunal of mullahs would be to Americans.
So, as President Obama and his generals craft a new strategy for military and diplomatic solutions in the south Asian nation, it's helpful to understand the Afghan experience, to the extent possible for the clean-shaven, bare-headed, voting-booth savvy people of the U.S.
That's what I came to understand earlier this month, when I found myself in the company of several Afghanistan strategists (as well as a number of drunkards, ne'er-do-wells and politicians -- but I repeat myself). It was the 51st meeting of the Auld and Venerable Society of -- well, I don't think I'm supposed to say, so let's call it a camping trip to Big Sur.
The campers included retired Army Col. Hy Rothstein, Ph.D, a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey who served in the Army Special Forces for 26 years and is periodically commissioned by the Pentagon to examine the war.
I cornered him during an organized (and exhausting) 100-yard hike through a grove of redwoods and Douglas fir to an adult-beverage watering station. His take: American interests are better served when we don't try to foist Western hierarchic models on a people who just don't operate that way. I phoned him a few days later for clarification: What makes Afghan society so different?
"In Afghanistan, you've got so many cultures and ethnic groups and separations as a result of geography," he said. "The society matured in small enclaves, and the people are very territorial. ... You can't do things effectively without the approval of local leaders. Al-Qaeda would never have been allowed to operate in Afghanistan without the approval of these people."
And that, he said, is what the U.S. will have to do to create an atmosphere that no longer abides (or harbors) terrorism. Local elders wield the most significant power in Afghan society, followed by the mullahs, or Islamic clergy, and then the government. The U.S., consciously or not, has tried to flip that hierarchy, which has fostered a sense of illegitimacy, he said.
It comes down to this counterintuitive truth about today's Afghanistan: A weak state is a stable state. That the U.S. has been slow to appreciate that reality is one problem. Here's another: The failure to set a clear objective.
"The fact that people are debating Gen. (Stanley) McChrystal's strategy tells me he wasn't told where on that (strong state vs. weak state) continuum we should be," Rothstein said. "Either his plan failed to meet the guidance he was given, or the president failed to give guidance, and that's what's now being deliberated: our goals in Afghanistan. And that's reflected by (U.S. special envoy Richard) Holbrooke's recent statement (about what success will look like in Afghanistan): 'We'll know it when we see it.' We haven't defined success in Afghanistan. Bush failed in this regard too. So how will Obama approach it?"
We'll find out. Eventually. Presumably. Obama isn't moving fast enough for some people, Rothstein among them.
Although Rothstein can see advantages, mostly psychological, to an Iraq-style surge, his preference is a long-term, low-cost presence that relies on Special Forces operations. The goal, Rothstein said, should be to restore an Afghanistan "that is not a breeding ground" for terrorism, rather than rebuild a fractured nation in our political or ideological image.
Hear, hear. Of course, that's what many of us assumed the marching orders were eight years ago.
E-mail Robert Price at rprice@bakersfield.com.
