rajeev on rediff.com: a u-turn on the afghan issue? is obama thinking of staying on?

jun 21st, 2010

http://rajeev2007.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/a-u-turn-in-afghanistan-us-to-stay-on/

A U-turn on Afghanistan?

 

Rajeev Srinivasan wonders whether the US is making a mid-course correction on Afghanistan

 

These are not good times for US president Obama. Hailed as a savior if not a messiah just eighteen months ago, he is now reeling from several crises. The BP oil spell has left him looking incompetent and uncaring. The $1 trillion stimulus package may have avoided a Great Depression, but unemployment hovers near 10%. His big achievement, healthcare reform, has left a sour taste with almost all sections of society.

 

But most of all, the Afghanistan quagmire is getting worse. Just this week, seven US soldiers were killed in a single day; the public is getting tired of body bags and elusive promises of success. Maybe there's a re-think. A series of unexpected events took place recently that, if put together, may signal a mid-course correction by the US:

 

1. A report from the London School of Economics and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University that emphasized the very high level of co-operation between Pakistan's government, ISI and the Taliban
2. A major story in the New York Times about the discovery of large mineral deposits in Afghanistan
3. Severe ethnic riots, resulting in a breakdown of normal activity, in the republic of Kyrgyzstan, where an important US air force supply base in Manas is used to support the war effort
4. The resignations of Afghanistan's interior minister and security chief, among other things, taking responsibility for an attack on a loya jirga, but also suggesting a hardening of ethnic differences
5. Reports that the Afghan President Karzai has lost faith in the ability of the NATO forces to actually win the war
6. Reports that the much-anticipated counter-insurgency surge in Marjah, which was hailed at the time as momentous, has bogged down and that the rebels are gaining strength

 

All these have to be seen in the context of Obama's policy of increasing the number of soldiers on the ground first, and then beginning to wind down the US war effort and withdrawing troops in 2011, just in time to declare victory and use the halo effect to effortlessly win the 2012 presidential elections.

 

That dream is, to put it mildly, in some jeopardy now. The Obama plan was to surge, bribe, declare victory and run like hell. They have done the surge part, and are in the process of bribing (usually the ISI and its pals), but it's not going well. The bribees are not acting as expected – Afghans seem to be taking the bribes and merrily continuing what they were doing anyway.

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