Foreign Policy In Focus

Among the many unlikely elements in a Wall Street Journal article yesterday (October 26):

Vice Adm. Robert Harward, a U.S. Navy SEAL and yoga practitioner who until recently. … headed Task Force 435, a coalition unit that oversees detention facilities housing Afghan insurgents, including the major center at Bagram.

Yoga and Bagram? That's enough to induce a bad case of cognitive dissonance. Also unusual is the heights of cleverness that the Wall Street Journal attained with the title for the article by Don Nissenbaum: For This Yogi, Afghan Peace Plan Needs More Downward Dog.
 
But most unlikely is the central story itself. Former "super model" Cameron Alborzian, who is now an "enlightened guide who would come to your home and serve as a live-in guru reportedly for up to $30,000 per week"

… sat down with Maj. Gen. Phil Jones at the U.S.-led coalition headquarters in Kabul this past summer to discuss a novel way to persuade Afghan insurgents to lay down arms. … Mr. Alborzian presented a bold plan to the British general who oversaw the coalition's effort to lure Taliban fighters from the battlefield: Afghan militants should join Western troops in meditation and yoga, embracing a new spirit of brotherly unity.

With considerably less cleverness than the title of the piece, Nissenbaum writes that Alborzian's "message of peace may seem kooky."

But it has been persuasive enough to get meetings for Mr. Alborzian and his project's Kabul-based representative with senior coalition officers, Afghan ministers and even a onetime insurgent leader. The project also won a sympathetic hearing from Vice Adm. Robert Harward. … And it has opened doors at Afghan prisons, where [Alborzian and his Kabul-based representative] have taught guards at detention centers to do basic, nonreligious Ayurvedic yoga poses. The pair say they have secretly taught a former Taliban commander how to meditate and soothe his militant mind. 

After pointing out that to some Muslims this pollutes Islam with Hindu practices, Nissenbaum presents yet more qualified approval of Alborzian's plan in an article that, despite its platform, is generally complimentary. Apparently states are beginning to realize that convening representatives of religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam can pave the way for détente among warring factions. Canada has been at the forefront of this (hope to post on this as I accumulate more information).

Meanwhile, as we see often in business, it's often those who are constitutionally unable of focusing on the downside -- men and women of all ages who are eternally hopeful to the point of naivete or in denial that they'll be denied -- who succeed with their dreams. His status as a $30,000-a-week yogi coach to the stars aside, more power to Cameron Alborzian and those assisting him.

In the course of an October 3 article at MEMRI titled The Failing U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan, Tufail Ahmad and Y. Carmon puncture the myth that the Taliban is negotiating, or preparing to negotiate, with the United States. (MEMRI is the Middle East Media Research Institute.) Even more of a revelation -- at least to me --they report that Pakistan mounted a series of military attacks on Afghanistan this year. Here's a sample:

In February 2011, Pakistani planes also bombarded Afghan Border Police posts and civilians' homes in Afghanistan's Nangarhar and Khost provinces. … In June 2011, Pakistan launched a series of missile and artillery attacks on the Afghan provinces of Kunar, Nangarhar, Khost and Paktia, killing dozens of civilians which were described by the Afghan government in a resolution as an "act of invasion" by Pakistan. On June 26, 2011, Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused Pakistan of firing 470 missiles into the eastern Afghan provinces. … In a July 2, 2011 testimony before the parliament, Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak confirmed that two Pakistani helicopters entered the Afghan territory sometime in the summer of 2011. On July 5, 2011, Afghan border police commander Aminullah Amarkhel reported that hundreds of fighters from the Pakistani Taliban crossed the border into Afghanistan's Nuristan province, where they attacked police outposts and torched homes. … on the eastern borders of Afghanistan with Pakistan, and that Pakistan has established 16 security checkposts inside Afghanistan's territory; 31 Pakistani security checkposts on the border with eastern Afghanistan were also seen as a threat to Afghanistan.

It's embarrassing enough for the United States that Pakistan not only refuses to clamp down on, but enables, the Haqqani network's campaign in Afghanistan. But when Pakistan's military itself invades Afghanistan, it nudges our campaign there into the realm of the  farcical. At least, though, it permits Pakistan a degree of payback for our drone attacks on Pakistan's soil, as well as the raid on Abbottabad.

Brutal Haqqani Crime Clan Bedevils U.S. in Afghanistan is the unusually colorful title of a New York Times article by Mark Mazzetti, Scott Shane, and Alissa J. Rubin. They write that the Haqqani network -- separate from, but affiliated with, the Taliban -- is "the most deadly insurgent group in Afghanistan" according to "American intelligence and military officials." It's effectively a crime syndicate -- "the Sopranos of the Afghanistan war" according to Mazzetti, et al. Yet it's as brutal as a serial killer: this year alone, for instance, the Haqqanis are responsible for the attacks in Kabul on the Intercontinental Hotel and the U.S. embassy.

The authors write: "They have trafficked in precious gems, stolen lumber and demanded protection money from businesses building roads and schools with American reconstruction funds." In fact, "Over the past five years … the Haqqanis have run what is in effect a protection racket for construction firms -- meaning that American taxpayers are helping to finance the enemy network."

Humiliating, to say the least. To some American officials, though, failing to deal with  the Haqqanis constitutes "a missed opportunity with haunting consequences. … American military officers … express anger that the Obama administration has still not put the group on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations out of concern that such a move would scuttle any chances that the group might make peace with Afghanistan's government."

In fact, even though they're responsible "for hundreds of American deaths, the Haqqanis probably will outlast the United States troops in Afghanistan and command large swaths of territory there once the shooting stops."

Why postpone the inevitable then? Leave Afghanistan to the Haqqanis, as well as the Taliban. Without Western aid, it won't be long before they come down with a severe case of "watch out what you wish for." One reason this is unlikely to soon occur is that the United States is no doubt reluctant to relinquish its original purpose for attacking and invading Afghanistan -- to not only defeat al Qaeda, but drive it out of Afghanistan.

See, according to a report in July by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (as summed up by Washington Post)  the Haqqani network "has been more important to the development and sustainment of al-Qa'ida and the global jihad than any other single actor or group."

After bin Laden relocated to Afghanistan and began making provocative statements against the West … Haqqani allowed the al-Qaeda leader to use its territory in eastern Afghanistan to organize calls for global jihad. … [Recent] events may have brought al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network closer together, their ambitions more in line. With drone strikes on the network's base in North Waziristan, it likely has a sense of shared suffering with senior al-Qaeda leaders. In part because of that shared affinity, the CTC study finds, it would be a mistake for U.S. policymakers to underestimate the impact of Haqqani network beyond Afghanistan's borders."

Them's certainly intervention-extending words. In fact, the CTC concludes that

U.S. efforts to disrupt and degrade [the Haqqani network] today … are just as much about dismantling [al-Qaeda] as they are about degrading the Haqqani network.

Still, who's to say that the Haqqanis aren't open to throwing over al Qaeda for the right price? Let's sit down with them and see. 

Cross-posted from the IPS blog.

At this moment the hollow debate on the deficit has sucked up almost all the oxygen in the Capitol. Yet the war in Afghanistan which costs us hundreds of billions of dollars a year is scarcely mentioned. Sixty-four percent of the people of this country believe that the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting, so representing "the people" should mean using Congressional power to end that war — not least because the war budget is the biggest potential source of money to pay for jobs.

Congress isn't doing that yet. But it's encouraging to remember that there are a few — painfully few! — members of Congress still prepared to really represent the views of their constituents. Seattle-area Congressman Jim McDermott spoke on the floor of the House this week, focusing once again on the unacceptable costs of the Afghanistan war. 

McDermott identified the war as reflecting the kind of military expansion that brings about the collapse of empires. And he even took on the popular claim that it was Ronald Reagan's presidency that brought down the Soviet Union, reminding us all that it was military spending, especially in Afghanistan, that actually brought about Soviet collapse.

Crucially, McDermott noted that the U.S. is now spending two-and-a-half times as big a percentage of its GDP on its ten-year war in Afghanistan, as the Soviet Union spent during its ten years of war in Afghanistan. Here's the speech:

Typical of articles calling the Taliban attack on the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul a "showcase for their abilities" and a "carefully orchestrated operation" is this from the Daily Beast:

[The Taliban] had proven once again that insurgents can strike just about any time and anywhere against their chosen targets, exposing the fragility of Kabul’s security just days before Afghan security forces are scheduled to take responsibility for securing the city and several other towns and provinces around the country in the wake of President Obama’s announcement of the phased U.S. military withdrawal.

Still, the eight attackers, all armed with suicide vests in addition to weapons, were killed. This begs the question: with its increasing tactical sophistication, why does the Taliban continue to rely on a technique that's as strictly from hunger as suicide bombing?

As a tactic (if it can be called one), suicide bombing makes the Taliban look not only desperate, but, of course, too savage – read: al-Qaeda-like – to inherit the reins of a nation. My guess is that the willingness of those wearing the vests to die as martyrs is supposed to represent a de facto blessing by Allah for the operation. It's almost like a shahid are a good luck talisman.

But this is not the way for a regime-in-waiting to behave if it expects to be taken seriously by other states. Time to grow up, Taliban. Act as if you belong on the international stage and maybe you'll get there.