My supervisor at Oxford would sometimes press for meaningful differences (if any) in the academic distinctions I drew, say, in a historical essay.  Weekly tutorials were challenging, and they made me realize how much is written which says so little.  They also made me realize how often people will mistake mere distinctions for differences and miss the chasms that separate peoples, cultures and events.  Leaving aside nuts, the world is a fruit bowl that contains apples and oranges, and it helps to know which you’re talking about!  Los Angeles is not New York.  Baghdad is not Riyadh either.  Iraq is not Afghanistan moreover, and America’s involvement in both countries is entirely different.  Afghanistan is a distinction with difference worth making. 

To start with, we did not invade Afghanistan the way we did Iraq.  We had to act quickly and decisively there to topple the Taliban regime, in order to disrupt and hopefully destroy al Qaeda soonest.  It would have been well into the spring of 2002 before we could have mounted an invasion on par with Iraq.  For political and military reasons in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we decided not to invade; rather, the U.S. made deals with groups that opposed the Taliban.  We allied with the Northern Alliance group to the North, which had close ties with Russia.  The U.S. allied with Persian groups in the West, with close ties to Iran.  Moscow and Tehran both were quiescent, because they couldn’t stand the Taliban either.  The U.S. mobilized various other Afghan elements, essentially buying support with large sums of money distributed by intelligence operatives.  Hence local groups provided the force for the mission.  U.S. presence consisted of a few hundred troops from Special Ops, along with CIA serving mostly as political liaison to the Afghan groups and making sure they had the weapons and intelligence needed.  Of course, we contributed essential air power from the Air Force and Navy to support operations.  Air strikes began just a month after 9/11.

The Taliban were beaten quickly but not altogether defeated.  Rather they were displaced, which was fine since it ended the safe haven for al Qaeda.  Taliban were forced out of power and back into the countryside where they regrouped and retained some military capability.  Note, however, that from a long-term perspective this left the U.S. in similar situation to the Soviets.  At the hazard of comparing apples to oranges, opposition to the U.S. in Afghanistan could follow a similar pattern to opposition to the Soviet Union, i.e., raising political influence in the countryside, regrouping militarily, and choosing to conduct small-scale operations that negate advantage in airpower.  Unfortunately, the swift toppling of the Taliban did not lead to utter destruction of al Qaeda’s command structure, which managed to slip away into Pakistan at Tora Bora.  The Taliban were down but not out (or perhaps out but not down); worse, al Qaeda though degraded was hardly eliminated.  Al Qaeda’s sanctuary shifted from Afghanistan to the largely ungoverned and mountainous region inside Pakistan.  U.S. interest in Afghanistan was pretty much nil for all the talk of democracy.  The prize had eluded us.  We were then chiefly responsible for turning NATO into an expeditionary force and bringing European troops into Afghanistan as a surrogate for Uncle Sam.  Even at that, there are only about 50,000 troops there! 

Hamid Karzai’s government, propped up by the U.S. and NATO, can only hold cities and conduct a few offensive operations—not pacify the country.  Not even 300,000 Soviets could do that.  As is so often the case, the United States finds supply routes to enemies hard to shut off.  Like a jihadist Ho Chi Minh Trail, the sanctuaries inside Pakistan and various al Qaeda sympathizers provide supplies to Taliban resistance up and down the border with Afghanistan.  Pakistan has an even bigger internal challenge with jihadist insurgents than it did when U.S. backed groups installed Karzai in Afghanistan.  Nevertheless, seven years of war and covert operations have had a huge impact on al Qaeda, which has been unable to mount significant operations for some time.  If the U.S. has finally gotten to the command structure of al Qaeda “prime” (as opposed to enthusiasts or sympathizers or new recruits capable of mounting no more than local suicide bombings), then we have belatedly achieved our main objective in that war. 

To conflate the objective of eliminating al Qaeda’s threat to the U.S. homeland with pacification of all Afghanistan would be to make a grave error and mistake—taking us from one quagmire and civil war to another.  Many of those who oppose war in Iraq nevertheless argue for more effort in Afghanistan, saying the war in Iraq diverts resources from Afghanistan or that our real enemy (Bin Laden) is in one place, i.e., on the Pakistani side of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and not in Baghdad.  While true so far as it goes, such distinctions belie the difference as well as potential danger. 

Wes Riddle is a retired military officer with degrees and honors from West Point and Oxford.  Widely published in the academic and opinion press, he ran for U.S. Congress (TX-District 31) in the 2004 Republican Primary.  Article based on report by George Friedman for Strategic Forecasting, “Al Qaeda, Afghanistan and the Good War” (25 February 2008). 

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Comments (1)

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written by lol , April 29, 2008

No, we cannot pacify the whole of Afghanistan. Even the British were stopped cold when they tried to go north out of India.

The key is stopping, as much as possible, traffic in and out. We can't stop it all, but our efforts must be directed to stopping what we can.

To hell with Bin Laden, which is more than a phrase, by the way. If we can isolate him, he's as good as dead.

The biggest danger, though, in this war on terror is the collective millions of partisan democrats who define everything in terms of political advantage.

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