The Foreign Service Journal, December 2008

of viewing Middle East politics through an anti-terrorist prism and of picking favorites among the region’s identity and religious politics. Likewise, our boycott and rejection of Hamas on grounds of its terrorist activity, rather than engaging it to influ- ence its behavior, has also back- fired. Another example of American myopia was Washing- ton’s short-lived proposal, floated in 2006, to create a moderate bloc of Sunni states and Israel opposing a “rad- ical” axis of Iran and its Shiite allies. Avoiding a New Quagmire in Afghanistan Opponents of the war in Iraq have argued that Afghanistan is the right place to fight terrorism, and that tracking down Osama bin Laden and defeating the Taliban should be our main strategic goals. But today, seven years after the U.S. routed the Taliban before becoming preoccupied with Iraq, an aggressive insur- gency threatens most of Afghanistan’s provinces. Popular hostility to foreign troops and loss of confidence in the Karzai government are growing. The situation is deterio- rating, despite the presence of almost 40,000 American troops who bear the brunt of an increasingly lethal and costly war, along with 35,000 other NATO forces. Pressure is building to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan as they become available from Iraq. At the same time, there is growing recognition that a military vic- tory there is beyond our reach and that American forces risk being drawn into another bottomless quagmire in a large nation with a hostile terrain and a history of ungovernability. The fierce resistance of Afghan tribes- men to foreign armies, as the British and Russians learned to their regret, is legendary. General Dan McNeil, the former NATO commander in Afghanistan, estimates it would take 400,000 foreign troops to pacify the country. Given these realities, there is no reason to believe that more American soldiers are the answer there. Instead, we need a new strategy. America’s strategic goals should be to eliminate bin Laden and al-Qaida’s command structure (believed to be in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan, not Afghanistan) and to staunch the spread of extremism into Pakistan. Pashtun tribes in the Pakistani tribal areas are now har- boring al-Qaida members and offering safe havens for resup- plying and training the Taliban. They continue to receive sup- port from elements of Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, as they have for decades. A more realistic strategy for dealing with this mess would avoid a larger U.S. military com- mitment in Afghanistan and focus on a new relationship with Pakistan to win its support, which is essential, for containing the Taliban and ultimately eliminating al- Qaida. Washington and Islamabad are already discussing security in the tribal regions with Pakistan’s new civilian and military leadership. A broader strategic approach is needed to transform cooperation against terrorism and extremism, which are a grave threat to both the U.S. and Pakistan. This strategy would couple economic and security assistance to Pakistan, including the poor tribal areas, with efforts to gain support from India, China and Iran, who are also threatened by extremism in Afghanistan and Paki- stan. This will be a huge challenge. Given Islamabad’s tor- tured politics and its past support for the Taliban to counter India in Afghanistan, relying on Pakistan may not succeed. But it is a more realistic option than a quest for military victory in Afghanistan, or unilateral U.S. military action in Pakistan’s tribal areas. To meet our obligation for continued support of Afghanistan, we should stabilize our military commit- ment, shifting the mix from combat to special operations and wider training of Afghan forces. We should also strengthen infrastructure and economic development in areas where this is possible. Other high priorities should be repairing international military and economic aid coordination, which is now dysfunctional; improving U.S. military-civilian cooperation; and conducting more effective poppy eradication. Washington should also send a clear message to the Karzai government that what its problems demand is a more serious Afghan effort to build government and security institutions and restore public support, not more American troops. Negotiations with some Taliban leaders and other militants, who are divided among themselves, should also be explored. F O C U S 26 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8 Our current alienation from the Arab and Muslim worlds because of failed policies and inept diplomacy has created a vacuum.