The Afghanistan Policy

The editors of Bloomberg have recognized what I pointed out a while ago—that we’re in serious need of a coherent policy with respect to Afghanistan:

In testimony this week before Congress, General John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, called for several thousand additional troops from the U.S. or its NATO partners and a “holistic review” of U.S. relations with Pakistan, which still hosts the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Both ideas are worthy of debate, and it’s hard to argue with initiatives to root out the corruption that saps the Afghan security forces and to bolster Afghanistan’s political stability. Speedily nominating a serious U.S. ambassador would also be a step in the right direction.

But given the commander-in-chief’s previous skepticism, something more is necessary. The White House needs to define a vision for success in Afghanistan and what will be required to achieve it. That plan should recognize both the need for a long-term U.S. commitment and the reality that the U.S. can’t achieve its goals without its NATO allies and cooperation from China, India, Pakistan and, yes, even Iran.

concluding with a pious:

Afghanistan will never be a Jeffersonian democracy. But the U.S. has an abiding interest in seeing that it not degenerate into a failed state.

What they didn’t quote from Gen. Nicholson’s remarks is that the present condition, after more than 15 years and the deaths of several thousand American soldiers, is a stalemate.

The editors of Bloomberg are still clinging bitterly to their illusions about Afghanistan. The problem isn’t preventing “a failed state”; it’s that the people of Afghanistan aren’t sympathetic with the very idea of the modern state, at least not one in which their family, their clan, their tribe isn’t in charge.

And “rooting out corruption”? One of the ways in which Afghanistan will “never be a Jeffersonian democracy” is that in a Jeffersonian democracy official corruption is a perversion of the system. In Afghanistan it is the system.

Cooperation from NATO allies and the listed countries? I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Our NATO allies are demilitarizing as fast as they can and adjacent countries can only be expected to stoke inter-ethnic quarrels.

As I pointed out fifteen years ago, in all of history there’s only been one successful invasion of Afghanistan, that was by Alexander, and that was because he intended for his people to stay there. Try selling that to the American people. Try selling it to the Afghans.