What Exactly Are Our Options in Afghanistan? Posted by Michael Cohen

I have a lot of respect for Stephen Biddle, who I think wrote one of the most cogent analyses of FM 3-24, the Army and Marine Counterinsurgency Manual. But on Afghanistan, I've been a bit more critical. There was his piece from the American Interest this past summer that I felt portrayed our options in Afghanistan in an overly simplistic manner.

Now he's written a piece for the New Republic that takes a similar approach, by portraying our options in Afghanistan as being a choice between full-fledged COIN and COIN half-measures. The folks at TNR asked me to draft a response to the article and you can read the full thing here. I've cut and pasted a short preview below:

In the summer, Biddle based his argument on the suspect notion that policymakers faced the choice of U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan or prolonged American engagement. Now, Biddle's straw men are the disparate elements of a counter-insurgency operation, which he claims will fail on their own but which are likely to succeed if pursued in concert. But neitherfull-fledged COIN or so-called half measures are reflective of the diverse set of possible scenarios that the White House could andshould be considering. If anything, they only muddy the waters because neither strategy has a strong chance of succeeding or even being implemented.

Biddle claims that "integrated COIN offers a higher probability of success than any of the proposed middle ways; middle ways are cheaper, but also likelier to fail." Yet nothing in his article actually supports this argument. Biddle does not make the affirmative case for why a COIN mission would work; and he doesn't fully and faithfully engage with the alternative approaches for stabilizing Afghanistan and securing U.S. interests there. Quite simply, there is no evidence that the sum he embraces is greater than the parts he dismisses.

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[William deB. Mills]

The real range of US options in Afghanistan is far greater than policymakers imagine because Americans are deeply stuck in a mental box about the whole conflict with Islam. I won’t go into that whole issue here. Instead, a few words on one seldom-considered option: the careful, thoughtful, honorable exit strategy. The time has come for the U.S. to move past the simplistic “go or stay” debate to a focus on the full range of Afghan policy options. Washington urgently needs to design an honorable Afghanistan exit strategy.

Three principles that currently seem almost taboo in Washington policy-making circles point the way to an honorable exit strategy from Afghanistan for the U.S. These principles are of course moot to the degree that Washington may have no intention of leaving, but for those searching for an American exit strategy that leaves Afghanistan in peace, these principles offer an initial set of guidelines.

1. Local Control: Muslim socio-political reform should be managed first by locals and second by neighboring non-Western societies;
2. Civil Society First: The method should always give precedence to civil society reform with military action firmly subordinated;
3. Afghan Independence: The goal should not be incorporation into the American system but the establishment of an independent society.

Of course, the devil is in the details: which Muslim societies we can work with (Indonesia? Iran? Bosnia?); how a compromise be reached with insurgents; how to destroy the rapidly rising Afghan narco-state. The challenge of these details is exactly why a public debate about and serious planning of an exit strategy needs to begin now.

[Luis de Agustin]

Separately this month NPR interviewed two distinguished retired US colonels asymmetrically opposed in their opinions on Afghanistan past, present and future. Andrew Bacevich barely contains disapprobation for escalation by President Obama of US involvement in Afghanistan, and subsumed his contempt for the autocratic machinery that cheers and presses the war on, while John Nagl presents a stunning affirmation of the need for the US to escalate, remain, and build a shinning city upon a hill or face wreck and ruin.

Both presentations convince, but what tips the scale in favor Bacevich is realizing he represents only his argument for disengagement vs. Nagl’s astonishingly sophisticated doublespeak in service to those who would advance professionally by continued war or realize appreciation in professional fees or investment portfolios.

The Nagl argument is a con that uses the neocon bamboozle for its model. It again brings the four horsemen to the field and misses not a beat dusting off the beasts and continuing to ride into still-to-pick-clean pastures. Such is the magic of intellectuals who can pick your pocket while blinding you with ugly smiles. Bacevich is too great a gent to strip-tell it like it is. And yet, were Mr. Nagl to tell the truth, he’d immediately be professionally punished.

If Obama goes along with General McChrystal’s demands, even ceremoniously demanding “conditions” and reducing the allocation, the preposterous strategy for this almost romantically labeled “long war,” will nevertheless enforce US oppression on an occupied country, and terminate in US ignominy. The president would confirm whose interest he serves and whose disapproval he fears, and it would not be that of the American people. They, after all, can be bought next year.

Luis de Agustin

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Senior administration officials tell ABC News that President Obama at his war council meeting tomorrow will assess four different specific strategies for Afghanistan and Pakistan, including two different options put forward by Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

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