Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - The Leverage Version Posted by Michael Cohen

One of the elements of our national debate on Afghanistan is how occasionally constricted that debate often seems to be. Take for example Helene Cooper's article today in the New York Times about diminishing US leverage over the Karzai regime - and this quote from Ronald E. Neumann, the former ambassador to Afghanistan:

“You know that scene in the movie ‘Blazing Saddles,’ when Cleavon Little holds the gun to his own head and threatens to shoot himself?”

“The argument that we could pull out of Afghanistan if Karzai doesn’t do what we say is stupid. We couldn’t get the Pakistanis to fight if we leave Afghanistan; we couldn’t accomplish what we’ve set out to do. And Karzai knows that.”

Well frankly what's stupid is the strawman argument that the immediate response to Karzai's recalcitrance is pulling our troops out of Afghanistan - an idea that Cooper acknowledges, in this same article, the White House is not even considering. Second, can we please move past the notion that the Pakistanis have no agency when it comes to handling the threat of jihadist terror. Are the Pakistanis currently conducting a robust offensive in Waziristan because of us - or because they sense a threat to their own national security? And over the past 8 years has anything the US done or said gotten the Pakistanis to crackdown on the Afghan Taliban groups in their midst? Lets give the Pakistanis a little credit here, why don't we.

But the final fallacy here is that we have no leverage over Karzai or that we can't further US national interests without him. It's not to say Karzai is unimportant, but ultimately we clearly have more leverage over him than he has on us. We can leave!

Frankly much of the argument made in Cooper's piece seems predicated on the notion that we need Karzai because we can't do a counter-insurgency without him. Well then fine, don't do a counter-insurgency. In fact, if Karzai's recent behavior isn't the death knell of counter-insurgency in Afghanistan then it's never going to happen. The notion that any US military officer who prays at the altar of FM 3-24 (which says host country support is the sine qua non of effective COIN operations) is still supporting a COIN effort in Afghanistan is beyond me.

Stop trying to conduct nation building in Helmand Province; cede the Pashtun belt to the Taliban; re-focus the mission narrowly to containment and counter-terrorism; support provincial leaders against the Taliban; announce a timeline for withdrawal from Afghanistan etc. It seems as though we have a few more options in Afghanistan than simply tying ourselves to the corrupt Karzai regime.

The notion that we are somehow hostage to Karzai's machinations is absurd. Look he has far more to lose from a Taliban takeover than we do. We can weather it; we can devise alternative policies - clearly he can't. If Karzai doesn't want to clean up his act; then make a political deal with the Taliban (we'll pull troops out of the Pashtun belt and in return no AQ safe haven in Afghanistan). Tell Karzai to go to war with Dostum and Fahim because no more American soldiers are going to die on behalf of his government. This isn't complicated.

But I'll tell you what would be complicated - and stupid to boot - sending more than 30,000 troops to Afghanistan without any clear guidance about when the US and NATO can turn over responsibility to the Afghan government; and no clear sense that it will actually further US interests.

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