Intractable problems

House Appropriations Chair, Representative David Obey, recently said:
“With respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan, I am extremely dubious that the administration will be able to accomplish what it wants to accomplish. The problem is not the administration’s policy or its goals. The problem is that I doubt that we have the tools there that we need to implement virtually any policy in that region.” (David Herszenhorn, “Unease Grows for Democrats Over Security,” New York Times, May 14, 2009)

A recent incident in Afghanistan illustrates my understanding of Obey’s perception of the U.S. problems in Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. desired to expand a military base (Forward Operating Base Wolverine) in an area dominated by the Taliban. The area is very fertile and agriculturally productive because of an extensive system of millennia old underground irrigation canals. Preliminary work on the base began to disrupt the vital irrigation system.

U.S. leaders belatedly scheduled a meeting with local Afghan leaders to explain the base’s importance and to acknowledge the importance of the irrigation system. The Taliban arranged to meet with the local leaders immediately prior to the meeting with the U.S. leaders, demonstrating great political shrewdness. Not surprisingly, the locals brought hardened attitudes to their meeting with U.S. and the session failed to satisfy both sides. (Michael M. Phillips, “Learning a Hard History Lesson in 'Talibanistan,'” Wall Street Journal, May 14, 2009)

Quite simply, the U.S. agenda does not match the agenda of most local Afghans, nor are the two agendas often compatible. Afghans often dislike the Taliban’s harsh interpretation of Sharia, but have an even deeper animosity toward any outsider, be the outsider Mongol, British, Soviet, or U.S. Three thousand years of history and culture separate the U.S. from the people of Afghanistan, a gap no rapid response force can bridge. In attempting to impose regime change on Afghanistan and drag that country into a westernized version of twenty-first secular democracy that U.S. has embarked upon an “impossible dream.”

Concurrently, an Iraqi cleric allegedly sympathetic to the U.S. is under arrest in Iraq for criminal activities that include kidnapping. Mullah Khalil began as a Saddam Hussein supporter and then became an insurgent working with al Qaeda against the U.S. occupation before supposedly becoming part of the U.S. sponsored and funded Sons of Iraq movement. Recent attacks against Khalil’s mosque appear orchestrated by al Qaeda. (Anthony Shadid, “The Swift Rise and Fall of Iraqi Cleric Nadhim Khalil,” Washington Post, May 14, 2009)

Confirmation of the exact details of Khalil’s convoluted narrative is impossible. However, the story graphically illustrates two truths. First, loyalties in Iraq shift frequently. Second, the Iraqi culture was and is vastly different that anything that most American military planners and politicians understand.

In sum, Representative Obey is correct. The U.S. lacks the tools (or knowledge) to resolve the situations in Afghanistan and Iraq in accord with U.S. aims and goals. The U.S. needs to exit both Iraq and Afghanistan expeditiously and to redefine its national goals in terms that are achievable, respect the dignity and worth of all people, and have a realistic probability of moving the world toward peace.