How Big A Threat is al Qaeda? Posted by Michael Cohen

I am without a doubt the worst vacation blogger ever - but here I am at the San Diego airport reading this fascinating article from the Guardian about al Qaeda and I just HAD to write something.

Here a couple of its key conclusions:

• al-Qaida is under heavy pressure in its strongholds in Pakistan's remote tribal areas and is finding it difficult to attract recruits or carry out spectacular operations in western countries
• "Core" al-Qaida is now reduced to a senior leadership of six to eight men, including Bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to most informed estimates. Several other Egyptians, a Libyan and a Mauritanian occupy the other top positions. In all, there are perhaps 200 operatives who count.
• Lethal strikes by CIA drones – including two this week alone – have combined with the monitoring and disruption of electronic communications, suspicion and low morale to take their toll on al-Qaida's Pakistani "core"
• European Muslim volunteers faced a chaotic reception, a low level of training, poor conditions and eventual disillusionment after arriving in Waziristan last year.
• The most significant recent development is evidence that al-Qaida's alliance with the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan is fraying
• The failure to carry out spectacular mass attacks in the west since the 2005 London bombings has weakened the group's "brand appeal" and power to recruit.

This is really fascinating, particularly the stuff about the number of core al Qaeda operatives. Do we really have 60,000 troops in Afghanistan to fight a core group of 200 al Qaeda operatives? I suppose it's true, as one person cited in the article mentioned that you only have to get lucky once, but a) didn't AQ already get lucky once and b) does anyone really think it is a wise allocation of huge amounts of American resources and 65,000 troops to combat the terrorist aspirations of 200 core operatives of al Qaeda?

But this thing about this article that I find most interesting is the notion that al Qaeda is having a difficult time bringing in new recruits. I think this goes to show the intelligence of the American people in electing an African-American Muslim who was born in Kenya to hold the nation's highest office. U.S.A! U.S.A!

But jokes aside, allow me to ask a question - if al Qaeda is having a hard time finding new recruits is a long-term US military intervention in Afghanistan going to help or hinder that process?  I tend to think it plays right into AQ's hands, just as nearly everyone agrees the Iraq war did great things for the organization's recruitment efforts. If the goal of the US mission in Afghanistan is to disrupt, defeat and dismantle al Qaeda, wouldn't a long-term military presence in the country actually run counter to that goal.

And while I'm not completely sure what to make of these reports of fraying in the Taliban/al Qaeda alliance I find it harder and harder to believe that if the Taliban are able to take over Afghanistan again they are just going to give a desiccated, unpopular and exhausted AQ carte blanche to operate in the country - and this invite a robust US military response. I get that religious orthodoxy is religious orthodoxy, but even zealots aren't that stupid.

Welcome To the Club Posted by Michael Cohen

Writing today about yesterday's devastating Dexter Filkins and Carlotta Gall article on the widespread evidence of fraud in the Afghan election, Andrew Exum has this to say:

When people look back on the Afghanistan war, this might be the moment when historians will judge we should have cut the cord on the Afghan government. If we believe Generals McChrystal and Petraeus, and we believe a counterinsurgency campaign to represent our best chance of success in Afghanistan, then we have a big problem. Because if we believe what we ourselves have learned about counterinsurgency campaigns, we understand that we cannot be successful in one if the host nation government is seen as increasingly illegitimate -- and that's what the Karzai government is.

Legitimacy, as Lipset writes, is a relative. Its root is the belief that existing institutions are those most appropriate for society. The deeply unpopular Taliban's form of government is not seen as being a better alternative to what the Afghans currently have. But the Afghans are both losing faith and looking for something else. The United States and its allies are blamed not just for keeping Karzai in power but also for the excesses of his government, his relatives, and local officials. And for those who are calling for a withdrawal from Afghanistan, this election presents the best possible excuse to do so.

Missing from that excuse alone, of course, is a discussion of how the United States and its allies will protect their interests -- or the costs of withdrawal. And that's why I do not see withdrawal as an option.

Must be quite a day over at 13th and Penn.  Just to be clear those who have been arguing for a while about the problems in the US mission in Afghanistan hardly see this as the "best possible excuse" for withdrawal - they see it as further evidence. In fact, none of this should be a surprise. Indeed, if folks read this August 24th article from the NYT, the evidence that the Karzai government lacked legitimacy for an effective counter-insurgency operation was right there in the open:

In a region the Taliban have lorded over for six years, and where they remain a menacing presence, American officers say their troops alone are not enough to reassure Afghans. Something is missing that has left even the recently appointed district governor feeling dismayed. “I don’t get any support from the government,” said the governor, Massoud Ahmad Rassouli Balouch

Governor Massoud has no body of advisers to help run the area, no doctors to provide health care, no teachers, no professionals to do much of anything. About all he says he does have are police officers who steal and a small group of Afghan soldiers who say they are here for “vacation.”

It all raises serious questions about what the American mission is in southern Afghanistan — to secure the area, or to administer it — and about how long Afghans will tolerate foreign troops if they do not begin to see real benefits from their own government soon. American commanders say there is a narrow window to win over local people from the guerrillas.

Why anyone thought that a presidential election - even a fair one - would change the situation dramatically is beyond me. What this election has rather amazingly done is make a bad situation not only worse, but very likely untenable.

But I will say one thing, I tend to agree with Andrew that withdrawal is not an option - but only in the immediate term. The United States needs to begin thinking about a drawdown from Afghanistan, but for strategic and even moral reasons I can't buy into the idea that we should get out now. I'm not convinced that a Taliban-run Afghanistan is an existential threat to the US, but that doesn't mean any one of us should want that to occur. Not only would it be a disaster for the Afghan people, but I fear that it would have a destabilizing impact on the region. I also don't think it's realistic to expect or want the US military presence to end overnight. We still have enemies along the Af/Pak border who want to do great harm to the United States.

The key is to reframe the current mission. That means surrendering the dreams of fighting a counter-insurgency in Afghanistan a la the Iraq surge narrative.  It means thinking less about COIN and more about containment. It means putting more military pressure on the Taliban and more political pressure on Pakistan to target Afghan Taliban safe havens across the Durand line. It means speeding up the process of training the Afghan military and police so that they can at least hold their own versus the Taliban.

I'll have more to say on this later, but really above all, it means being realistic about what the US can hope to achieve in Afghanistan. We are discovering once again - as we did in Iraq - that there are significant limitations on American power and political will; that military force is only so effective in helping us meet our political goals and that our intentions must be matched by our capabilities. I just hope that Andrew's public recognition of these challenges and limitations will push others to follow suit.

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - The Round Up Version Posted by Michael Cohen

So the AMCW is on a bit of a hiatus this week - vacation and funding proposal crunch is keeping me a little too busy. Blogging will be sparse.

However, there are a few things from over the weekend that bear reporting on. First, the situation in Kunduz, where an ISAF airstrike killed approximately 90 people, both insurgents and civilians. I'm having a hard time getting a clear sense of what really happened here, who is to blame and what it all means. One thing does seem clear - the Germans, who were responsible for calling in the airstrike, screwed up - big time. Or so says Foust AND Exum. And if those guys are on the same page, I'm guessing there is something to it. Thomas Rid thinks McChrystal screwed up and may have cost the coalition the continued support of German troops. But is that an altogether bad thing?  Not necessarily says Foust.

If the Washington Post is to be believed, McChystal handled the post-airstrike PR game pretty effectively. You got to give the man credit, he plays the optics game well.

My take, for the penny that it's worth, is that for all our talk of protecting civilians, we should hardly be surprised when these types of things occur. We can only do so much to protect civilians, particularly if as some reports seem to indicate the Taliban were using civilians as cover in this particular incident in Kunduz.  Civilians die in war, particularly in insurgencies like this one. We can talk all we want about protecting civilians, but in the end "war is cruelty, you cannot refine it." It's a lesson we should never forget - and as I've argued her repeatedly if people think that COIN doesn't involve coercion and violence, well they just don't know COIN.

So while I think it's wonderful that the US military is going out of its way to preventing civilian casualties, I'm less convinced that this actually helps us win the war or defeat the Taliban, which ultimately is the goal. Protecting civilians is not the end-all, be-all; it's a means to an end - the end being defeating the Taliban (well actually it's defeating al Qaeda, but don't get me started on that). But what if doesn't get us any closer to the ends; or what if we lack the resources, the coordination or the Afghan support to achieve it? What if the problem is the means not the ends?

Right on cue, the always astute Gian Gentile had a very smart piece up at Small Wars Journal a few days ago about the need for an enemy-centric approach to the fight with the Taliban:

Perhaps the way ahead in Afghanistan, at least the immediate way ahead to stabilize the situation
is to not focus on hearts and minds but in killing the enemy.  This is not so radical of an idea,
mind you.  Earlier this year two infantry lieutenants and one of their sergeants, fresh from hard
combat experience in Afghanistan, made the argument that the American Army was losing its
ability in Afghanistan to conduct basic infantry combined arms warfare.  Their solution was not
better population centric counterinsurgency tactics and processes but improving infantry platoons
and companies ability to close with and kill the enemy through fire and maneuver.  What they
were calling for was a reinvention of the American Army’s approach in Afghanistan in order to
regain the initiative.  And in war, whether it is counterinsurgency war, conventional war, hybrid
war, whatever, the INITIATIVE is everything.  In Afghanistan we have lost the initiative
because population centric counterinsurgency is basically a symmetrical, reactive tactical and
operational measure. History shows that focusing on killing the enemy works in a counterinsurgency campaign. 

I'm not necessarily convinced that what Gian is advocating is feasible (which is perhaps the point), but I continue to believe that unless you put military pressure on the Taliban we're not going to have a lot of luck with counter-insurgency, for reasons that I elaborate on in this FP piece (short version: we lack the resources and the support).  We're betwixt and between here: trying to do a counter-insurgency without the proper resources, but perhaps afraid to take an enemy centric approach for reasons of optics (well in fairness that Pakistan safe haven for Afghan Taliban doesn't help much either).

But as always Gian gives us much to think about (check out the comments section too on this post; they are pretty rich).

It would be impossible to do a write-up on the current situation in Afghanistan without referencing the recent presidential election in which according to Afghan officials President Karzai has received 50% of the vote and thus will avoid a run-off. None of this should be a surprise either, especially after reading Dexter Filkins take on this:

Afghans loyal to President Hamid Karzai set up hundreds of fictitious polling sites where no one voted but where hundreds of thousands of ballots were still recorded toward the president’s re-election, according to senior Western and Afghan officials here.The fake sites, as many as 800, existed only on paper, said a senior Western diplomat in Afghanistan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the political delicacy of the vote. Local workers reported that hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of votes for Mr. Karzai in the election last month came from each of those places. That pattern was confirmed by another Western official based in Afghanistan.

“We think that about 15 percent of the polling sites never opened on Election Day,” the senior Western diplomat said. “But they still managed to report thousands of ballots for Karzai.”

Besides creating the fake sites, Mr. Karzai’s supporters also took over approximately 800 legitimate polling centers and used them to fraudulently report tens of thousands of additional ballots for Mr. Karzai, the officials said.

The result, the officials said, is that in some provinces, the pro-Karzai ballots may exceed the people who actually voted by a factor of 10. “We are talking about orders of magnitude,” the senior Western diplomat said.

Oy vey! What a ginormous clusterf**k! So now the United States is going to be defending and extending the legitimacy of an Afghan government that is anything but legitimate or democratic. How does this not precisely play into the hands of the Taliban and disaffected Afghans?  I'm not really sure what to say about this, but this really does seem to fly in the face of our counter-insurgency strategy, don't you think?

Actually, I take that back, here's what I think you SHOULDN'T say about the Afghan election, particularly if you are a high-ranking US diplomat whose name rhymes with Sick Folbrooke:

"During that process there are going to be many claims of irregularities; that happens in every democracy . .  We recently had a senatorial election in Minnesota which took seven months to determine the outcome, there were so many charges of irregularities. It certainly won't take that long in Afghanistan, but that happens in democracies, even when they are not in the middle of a war."

You know this unnamed diplomat also served in Vietnam where there was this little thing called a "credibility gap." When I hear him say things like this and then I read things like this . . .

Mr. Karzai’s home province, Kandahar, where preliminary results indicate that more than 350,000 ballots have been turned in to be counted. But Western officials estimated that only about 25,000 people actually voted there.

. . . I begin to formulate uncomfortable historical analogies in my head.

NSN Daily Update: September 8, 2009 Posted by The Editors

For today's completely Daily Update, click here

What We're Reading

Debate still swirls around the extent to which President Obama will pour more troops or resources into Afghanistan. Investigations into the bombing of fuel trucks by NATO forces continue. And the UN electoral commissions announced a partial-recount of the presidential election.

The United Kingdom convicted three men related to a terror plot to blow up transatlantic flights.
Oil ties between the UK and Libya continue to color the furor over the release of the Lockerbie bomber as UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown continues to defend his Libya policy.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon offers reshuffled cabinet by replacing his attorney general, while Mexican authorities make arrests in the murder of a political candidate for office.

A severe drought is putting tremendous pressure on Kenya, prompting worries that even African countries with extensive development are not immune to drought and related disasters.

Commentary of the Day

Thomas Friedman and Anne Applebaum implore the Obama Administration to offer more details in explaining the possible policy changes in Afghanistan resulting from General McChrystal’s strategy review. Nicholas Kristof thinks a smaller US presence is inevitability.

Gideon Rachman explains the paradox of trying to create an energy policy that can satisfy all constituents.

Can Someone Please Describe Victory in Afghanistan For Me? Posted by Michael Cohen

You know, I recognize the fact that I could be completely wrong in everything I've written about Afghanistan - perhaps the security risks of an al Qaeda safe haven in Afghanistan necessitate the US maintaining a long-term presence in the country. Perhaps the risk of instability in Af/Pak is so great that US troops must maintain a presence for the foreseeable future. Perhaps we have a moral responsibility to stay the course.

Perhaps all of this is true. Perhaps I am wrong. But at least, I believe, I am being reasonably honest about what we can accomplish or what is realistic in Afghanistan. The same cannot be said of the armchair generals who continue to sound off the same empty platitudes about staying the course.

I am really sick and tired of listening to people like Michael Gerson tell me that we have "No Choice But To Try" in Afghanistan - and then simply refuse to tell me what victory looks like.  He's not alone. Yesterday Max Boot wrote paragraph after paragraph in the Wall Street Journal about "How To Win in Afghanistan" and nowhere in this chest-thumping screed could he be bothered with explaining what winning actually means. Tony Cordesman tells the world, here is How We Lose in Afghanistan, but can't be hassled with an explanation of how victory is achieved. Pete Wehner doesn't bother to do much more then accuse war critics of losing nerve.

Max Boot argues that the U.S. pullout from Lebanon and Somalia lad Osama bin Laden to "label us a weak horse that could be attacked with impunity." So Max are you suggesting we should have stayed in Lebanon and Somalia forever because we couldn't dare show weakness to some guy who lives in a cave? To read Boot is to believe we can never quit a conflict because of how it might "look" to the bad guys. And if Boot can't define victory or give a sense of what winning means then why should I listen to a word he says - because his recipe for American foreign policy is perpetual, unending war.

Enough already. If you can't define victory, if you can't explain what the end game looks like, if you can't say when the US role in Afghanistan will end; if you can't explain how the current US mission in Afghanistan can be achieved, if you're Michael Gerson and you write this:

This involves expanding the Afghan army, partnering American troops with Afghan forces, better protecting population centers, coordinating military advances with civilian development efforts, strengthening local governance and mastering the endless intricacies of a tribal culture. The effort will require more troops, more resources and more patience from a tired nation -- and perhaps, to get serious results in 2010, an emergency war supplemental appropriation from Congress.

 . . . and you can't be bothered with understanding or explaining how any of this grandiose vision is realistic or achievable - then why should anyone listen to you. None of these goals were achieved when the president that Mike Gerson worked for was in the White House, so what makes Gerson believe that any of it is achievable now? Gerson  evenhas the unmitigated chutzpah to write this:

It is not a serious strategy to exaggerate American obstacles in Afghanistan, to discount hopeful alternatives, and to speak with airy vagueness about how it will all work out if we retreat

But it IS a serious strategy to present a Panglossian view of what can be achieved in Afghanistan against 8 years of experience to the contrary. This would be nothing more than a joke if it wasn't dominating the current political debate on Afghanistan.

I understand that people believe that Afghanistan is vital to America's national interests - I'm even sympathetic to the argument. But these people need to a better job of not only explaining why, but also  how and they need to offer a vision of what an end game looks like. Calling people wussies because they think it might be time to recognize that our capabilities don't match our intentions is not an intellectually honest way to engage in this debate.

Being Realistic About Afghanistan Posted by Michael Cohen

So I'm not completely crazy about the title of this piece, but I have a new article up at ForeignPolicy's Af/Pak channel on the growing mismatch between our intentions and our capabilities in Afghanistan.

For example, my buddy John Nagl says we need to build up the Afghan security services so they can take responsibility for the counter-insurgency fight in Afghanistan. Agreed. The problem is what happens between now and then; and why are trying to fight a counter-insurgency in Afghanistan if we don't have the resources in place to be successful?

The sooner policymakers wake up to this sobering reality and stop trying to fit the square peg of counterinsurgency into the round hole of Afghanistan, the sooner U.S. military leaders can come up with an operational approach that is grounded in political and military reality. The key here is to move away from a population centric counter-insurgency fight, particularly in southern Afghanistan, to a more focused and politically realistic operation oriented around counter terrorism. Sean Kay's argument on these pages about re-focusing the fight in Afghanistan from counterinsurgency to a policy of containment is a good place to start this discussion. But it necessitates the recognition by policymakers of what is actually achievable in Afghanistan. Trying to fight a robust counter-insurgency without the proper resources to actually succeed is to quote a phrase the surest way "to lose in Afghanistan."

Read the whole thing here

What It Might Look Like if the Bottom Drops Out Posted by Patrick Barry

Helene Cooper observes that President Obama's reliance on GOP support for the war in Afghanistan could put him in a precarious spot should they withdraw that support. But what would that look like?  I'm not sure that the danger is, as Lindsey Graham says, that some on the right will "do to Obama the same thing the left did to Bush with Iraq." Yes, George Will, Andrew Bacevich, and now Chuck Hagel have, to varying degrees, criticized U.S. policy toward Afghanistan.  But judging by the state of Republican discourse these days, it seems unlikely that these paleoconservatives will carry the right's narrative on Afghanistan. 

What's far more likely is that hawkish conservatives in congress end up assailing the administration, not for doing too much, but for not doing enough. Suppose Obama approves a troop increase of somewhere between 7,000 and 14,000 (the low-end of what has so far been discussed by members of McChrystal's civilian advisory team)  And suppose a year from now Afghanistan is in the same shape it is now, or worse. Its hard to imagine John McCain, John Boehner or anyone else in the conservative leadership doing a 180 and suddenly opposing the war.   Instead, conservatives will likely do many liberals did on Iraq in 2004, and argue that the war effort is suffering due to insufficient resources\mismanagement\failure of leadership.

Consider also the political incentives for Republicans to take a pro-war position on Afghanistan.  Why, amidst increasing calls for withdraw from the left, and the absence of progress on the battlefield, would opportunistic conservatives refrain from accusing Democrats of being weak on national security? Whatever you think about the actual threat of terrorism from Afghanistan (and Pakistan), invoking that threat is still a pretty useful political tool. Any perceived schism between Obama and the military leadership on the strategy for Afghanistan would also play well with the right.  No, it becomes pretty hard to imagine conservatives joining with the anti-war types on this one.  

Now, I could see this playing out in a variety of ways.  One possibility is that a year from now, the Obama administration, still committed to Afghanistan, but lacking progressive support, is pulled deeper into the conflict by pro-war Republicans. On the other hand, if the situation hasn't improved at all, a new coalition, comprised of progressives and paleoconservatives could give Obama the cover he needs to re-position his policy toward disengagement.  Spencer suggests a third possibility, which is that the administration resists both calls for increased escalation and outright withdrawal, with negative consequences to their domestic agenda (and I think, their foreign policy agenda as well).  And finally, we shouldn't discount the chance that the administration's strategy could show signs of success, which would give them latitude with both the left and the right.

Because everything in Afghanistan remain so fluid, it's tough to forecast what the political debate will look like in one year's time.  But it probably won't be pretty.

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - With Friends Like These Version Posted by Michael Cohen

I really like Barack Obama. He's a great writer, a wonderful public speaker, a damn good politician and first rate intellect. So far, he seems to be a pretty excellent president. But perhaps my favorite thing about Barack Obama is his judgment. Like, for example, when he said these words in Chicago in October 2002:

I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the middle east, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Queda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

This early and cogent opposition to the Iraq War was the first thing that really appealed to me about Barack Obama and my belief that he would make for a fine, even great, president. What was most impressive about Obama's opposition to the war was that it ran against the prevailing tide of opinion both in political circles, but also journalistic circles. So for example, while Max Boot, Pete Wehner, the Washington Post editorial board, the WSJ editorial board, the New Republic, many of the folks at AEI and Brookings, not to mention a host of liberal hawks were saying that the Iraq war was the right thing to do and had to be fought, Barack Obama was saying the opposite: that the war was a mistake, that it shouldn't be fought and after it commenced that it should be ended. And of course, he was right.

This brings us to the current situation in Afghanistan - and the folks in non-governmental circles who are supportive of the current war effort. Over at abu muqawama, Andrew Exum notes with dismay that Newshour host Gwen Ifill said to him "Look, I understand you're not some fire-breathing hawk, but you're about the only person we can find in Washington to defend this war at the moment."

Uh oh!

Today, however, a few folks take up the challenge of defending the war. They have a usual suspects feel to them. For example, the Washington Post has a rather predictable (for them) editorial titled "The Right Response is Not a Retreat," which makes this assertion:

Given that the Taliban and al-Qaeda now also aim to overturn the government of nuclear-armed Pakistan, the risks of a U.S. withdrawal far exceed those of continuing to fight the war -- even were the result to be continued stalemate.

Oy! By the way, I "aim" to play shortstop for the Boston Red Sox.

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial titled "The Afghanistan Panic," which says this:

The fight in Afghanistan is not about nation building or turning a tribal state into Westminster. The goal is to provide enough stability and Afghan support to prevent the country from once again becoming a sanctuary for terrorists who could attack the U.S. In short, this is a fight in our strategic interests. Leaving Afghanistan in its current state would be a defeat in the larger war on terror, which would encourage jihadists everywhere. President Obama may not want to spend any political capital on Afghanistan, but he has no choice.

And in perhaps the most alarming sign, the New York Times reports that the most dependable supporters of the Afghanistan War are now Republicans not named George Will:

National security hawks in the Republican Party — not Mr. Obama’s most natural support base — still back the president on Afghanistan.

It was the Republican National Committee, and not the Democrats, that was sounding more solidly behind the president on Afghanistan. After Mr. Will’s abdication on Tuesday, the Republican National Committee quickly sent out an e-mail message and posted a statement, “Stand Strong, Mr. President,” on its Web site to take issue with the conservative columnist. “We agree with President Obama that ‘we have to win’ in Afghanistan and make sure that our commanders on the ground have the troops and resources they need,” the committee chairman, Michael Steele, said in the statement. He urged Mr. Obama to “stand strong and speak out for why we are fighting there,” adding that Mr. Obama has said too little so far “about why the voices of defeat are wrong.”

Look, if Barack Obama is counting on Michael Steele as an ally on anything something is horribly, horribly amiss.

And while many liberal hawks supported the Iraq War, their chest-thumping for this conflict - and in particular the growing mission in Afghanistan - has been noticeably quiet. Instead, we have folks like Russ Feingold - one of a handful of Democratic Senators to oppose the Iraq War - now making similar passionate arguments against the US mission in Afghanistan.

Frankly, if anything should give Barack Obama pause it is this. Perhaps it is my imagination, but it sure seems that the people who were consistently wrong about the Iraq War are the ones making the strongest arguments for continuing the mission; while many of the people who were consistently right about the Iraq War are the ones warning of "unintended consequences" and even mission creep.

Now some will say that opponents of the Iraq War were right for the wrong reasons - and there is something to this. But they were still right.  And in the fall and spring of 2002/2003 it took both courage and foresight to come out against a war fought in the name of fighting terrorism nearly a year after September 11th.

Mr. President, if you are relying for support from the same discredited voices who got the Iraq War wrong that's a problem. I realize that a broken clock is correct twice a day, but perhaps significant weight should be given to those, like you, who saw the Iraq war for the misguided effort that it was.

Afghanistan Mission Creep Watch - The Non-Violent Version Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at The New Republic, Michael Crowley has been on the Afghan/Pentagon beat as of late. And while I of course have enormous respect for any person who can write smartly on politics AND foreign policy I have to take issue with his post from yesterday.

Looking at the Soviet occupation in the 1980s to the current US military intervention in Afghanistan, Crowley contrasts the Soviets horrible infliction of casualties on the Afghan people to the current focus of US commanders on limiting civilian deaths.

But Crowley draws a far too overly broad conclusion:

If America succeeds where the Soviets failed, our determination to protect, not persecute, Afghan civilians will be a main reason why.

Simply because the Soviets targeted civilians and lost the war does not mean that the US protecting civilians will win the war.

Indeed, if there is one truism of successful counter-insurgencies in the 20th century it is that coercion and violence have almost always accompanied them. Even the "good ones" like Malaya involved the forceful resettlement of 500,000 ethnic Chinese. In Vietnam, the CORDS program was accompanied by Operation Phoenix, an assassination program that killed more than 30,000 Vietcong. Even in Iraq, the drop in civilian deaths of 2007-2008 was preceded by horrific ethnic fighting between Sunnis and Shias - and of course even though the US adopted more human COIN tactics it didn't stop nearly four times as many civilians from being killed by US airstrikes in 2007 as were killed in 2006.

If anything, the US focus on protecting civilians in Afghanistan - and the reticence to using coercion or violence - is the outlier here. If it works, it will provide a new model for how to fight a counter-insurgency. If the United States "wins" in Afghanistan (whatever that actually means) it will not be because we protected civilians - in fact, it's entirely possible that it will be a case of winning despite protecting civilians.

Now before someone accuses me of saying that we should loosen the constraints on the targeting of civilians, just stop right there. That is not my argument - at all. It's just that we shouldn't confuse protecting the population in Afghanistan with success. Doing the former does not ensure the latter.

Give That Man A Contract Pt. 2 Posted by Michael Cohen

Thomas Rid is smart:

There are costs and benefits attached to trying harder (in Afghanistan) — and there are costs and benefits attached to stop trying harder. And at some point somebody will have to make the decision to start a withdrawal. That much is safe to say. The question is: when do the net costs of trying to solve the problem outweigh the net benefits of trying to solve the problem? The answer cannot be a yes or no. Only a: then. Of course that doesn’t mean that a timetable should be communicated publicly — but the calculation should be clear, or at least clearer. Words like “winning” and “victory” have no place in this debate, even if the street is shouting for it.

What makes this calculus more complicated is that past losses in blood and treasure tend to make actors more irrational. Like on stock markets. The effect is twofold: first the costs of failure are constantly overrated. Naturally those with a vested interest look left and right for reasons to bolster their cause politically. They have to. Second the benefits of success are also overrated — for essentially the same reasons.

Or, to use the imperfect analogy: if I’d given my money to an activist investor (that would be the previous administration) who then forced a previously rock-solid company (that would be the U.S. military) to go after a product that doesn’t seem to work as advertised (that would be the war on terror) — I’d consider selling. Certainly the investor and his former advisers would have reduced credibility today, but also the current executives of the troubled company. Or at least they would have to put forward careful and considerate arguments for waiting out the crisis — in a calm, civilized, and sober way. If they’d overpromise or shout them in my face, I’d think something’s wrong.

Read the whole thing here.