Foreign Policy In Focus

Reports Declan Walsh for the New York Times on June 18:

A Pakistani Taliban commander has banned polio vaccinations in North Waziristan in the tribal belt, days before 161,000 children were due to be vaccinated. He linked the ban to American drone strikes and fears that the C.I.A. could use the polio campaign as cover for espionage, much as it did with Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani doctor who helped track Osama bin Laden.

The commander, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, said that polio vaccinations would be banned until the C.I.A. stopped its drone campaign, which has been largely focused on North Waziristan.

One's initial instinct is to chalk it off to Taliban dogmatism and savgery. But, their suspicions may be warranted. Walsh refreshes our memories about Dr. Afridi.

In March and April 2011, Dr. Afridi ran a vaccination campaign in Abbottabad that was designed to covertly determine whether Osama bin Laden lived in a house in the city. Dr. Afridi failed to obtain a DNA sample, a senior American official said, but did help establish that Bin Laden’s local protector, known as “the courier,” was inside the Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad.

Dr. Afridi was arrested three weeks after American Navy SEALs raided the house on May 2, 2011, killing the Al Qaeda leader. But the Abbottabad operation was not his only vaccination campaign.

American officials say Dr. Afridi had been working with the C.I.A. for several years, at a time when he was leading polio vaccination efforts in Khyber Agency, a corner of the tribal belt that harbors a rare strain of the disease.

Western aid workers have sharply criticized the C.I.A. for recruiting a medical personnel and have complained of harsh restrictions on their work imposed by suspicious Pakistani authorities.

For their part

American officials say Dr. Afridi was targeting a mutual enemy of Pakistan and the United States.

And polio isn't?

Just days before the Third U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue between the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and the Indian Foreign Minister, S.M. Krishna, in Washington, D.C., an important address was given by Robert O. Blake, a U.S. State Department official, at a meeting of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Blake stressed the unique importance of the U.S.-Indian bilateral relationship, not only to the two countries but to the world. It was noted that since these talks began in 2010, our strategic ties have led to an ever greater confluence of views on the important issues of our time. This address, the only indication thus far of the latest official thinking about this important Dialogue, was as significant for the issues it addressed as it was for those he failed to mention.

Most noteworthy was his emphasis on Afghanistan as the principal subject of the upcoming meeting. It was noted that past and continuing actions by both countries in this respect centered on economic and developmental goals, to be achieved through “strategic partnership” agreements signed by each government with Afghanistan. While both agreements include the training of Afghan forces, the American agreement (signed on May 1st, 2012) commits Kabul to allow the U.S. access and use of Afghan facilities beyond 2014 for purposes of “targeting the remnants of al-Qaeda” and for security and defense cooperation over the long-term. The security concern was once again emphasized in his closing remarks.

Thus, despite Blake’s focus on economic and scientific cooperation between India and the U.S., we see emerging a strong military and security theme, especially with regard to Afghanistan (a concern shared by the Indian Government). In his keynote address, Mr. Blake emphasizes Afghanistan’s security, as do the agreements signed by New Delhi (last year) and Washington (this year) with Afghanistan. This should not surprise us. After all, Afghanistan is a country which, in the public mind and in our daily news, is identified with the 10-year war being waged there, primarily by American military forces.

It must be stressed, however, that this emphasis goes far beyond the need to ensure Afghanistan’s stable and prosperous future. Indeed, its ramifications extend to Pakistan as well as Central Asia, and beyond that, to South and Southeast Asia. As Mr. Blake states in his concluding remarks, he feels encouraged by the progress made by the two governments towards broadening “our counter-terrorism and defense cooperation.” The economic goals, moreover, are to be achieved through cooperation and integration, not only bilaterally, but also along broad geographical lines, encompassing essentially all of Asia.

One might be tempted to question this as an overly ambitious scope on the part of an assistant secretary, until we hear Defense Secretary Panetta’s statement that the U.S. plans to increase its military presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Indeed, Blake goes on to praise India’s “Look East Policy” and sees the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Myanmar in May and the signing of multiple agreements while there as an example of India “assuming a larger role in the broader Asia-Pacific.” It should be noted, however, that while the Look East Policy has included recent attempts to develop economic relations with Singapore and the Association of South East Asia Nations (ASEAN), it is a policy of long-standing, initiated in 1991, and may have little to do with the current American decision to militarize its presence in the entire Asia-Pacific region. Indeed, Mr. Panetta’s announcement was almost immediately followed by a report in the Indian press that the Minister of Defense opposed India joining the U.S. “bandwagon” on the Asia-Pacific and that the U.S. ought to rethink this policy. But while some reports indicated that the Minister of Defense was in disagreement on this issue with the Indian Foreign Minister, other reports stated that Foreign Affairs Minister Krishna had told the Chinese Vice Premier at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit  that “India’s relations with China are a priority in India’s foreign policy”. This could be seen as directed to the U.S. Defense Secretary whose Asia-Pacific policy is widely thought to be aimed at China.

Mr. Panetta has also figured prominently in various Asian media because of comments about Pakistan. On June 7, while in New Delhi, he warned Islamabad that Washington is “losing patience” with the Government of Pakistan, for letting its territory be used as a safe haven for those who attack American and Afghan forces and then cross back into Pakistan. He singled out the Taliban and the Haqqani network. It is believed at the highest levels of the U.S. Government that this conduct reflects long-standing official policy by Islamabad. This is what has fueled Washington’s anger with Pakistan. On top of that, the six-month blockade of NATO’s military supply route into Afghanistan has brought American patience to a breaking point.

An important issue not raised by Mr. Blake is Iran, including the question of whether America’s friends and/or interlocutors will yield to Washington’s counsel or demand to impose sanctions on Iran or face U.S. sanctions. But there has been a reversal of this policy -- in the case of India. If so, it is unlikely that China alone would be singled out for sanctions. Both countries are critically important to the U.S. for a variety of reasons, some similar, some quite different. Clearly, Washington thought it best to clear the air ahead of the Strategic Dialogue.  

Moreover, as American economic power weakens, it negatively affects its political influence abroad. At a time when the economic crisis has become almost worldwide, and the U.S. is involved in numerous conflicts -- open, quiet or covert -- Washington can hardly afford to alienate a rising power like India, who has  been a hesitant friend at best and whose economic relationship with the U.S. is not as healthy as the U.S. -- or India for that matter -- would like. Nor can the U.S. alienate powerful adversaries like China, who is already unhappy with the return -- in a big way -- of U.S. military power in the Asia-Pacific region. Perhaps the most important conflict of interest between Washington and Beijing may be building up in the South China Sea, where China has important economic and energy interests. With U.S. military commitments being quite extensive, and the Defense Department facing severe budget cuts, Washington can hardly afford to pick a big fight with China. It is therefore likely that the threat of sanctions against China will be quietly abandoned, now that India has been exempted. If not, we may expect the Asia-Pacific region to heat up considerably.

Marine Gen. John Allen, the U.S. commander of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) in Afghanistan, "flew to Logar province, just south of Kabul, to meet with villagers and offer his condolences for the bombing Wednesday that Afghan officials said killed 18 civilians," reported the Washington Post on June 8."The airstrike was called in by U.S. troops after they came under fire while pursuing a Taliban fighter in a village in the Baraki Barak district.

Allen said to the Afghans:

“I know that no apology can bring back the lives of the children or the people who perished in this tragedy and this accident, but I want you to know that you have my apology and we will do the right thing by the families,” … NATO troops often make condolence payments to the families of victims in civilian casualty incidents.

Apologizing implies you'll try not to do the same thing in the future. Otherwise, the apology is empty. The definition of insanity is continuing air and drone strikes and expecting the results to be different each time.

NATO and the United States should just own its atrocities and its intentions to continue committing them. Because they're certainly not going to end until we leave Afghanistan.

The recent decision by the Taliban and one of its allies to withdraw from peace talks with Washington underlines the train wreck the U.S. is headed for in Afghanistan. Indeed, for an administration touted as sophisticated and intelligent, virtually every decision the White House has made vis-à-vis Afghanistan has been a disaster.

On Mar. 15 the Taliban ended preliminary talks with Washington, because, according to a spokesman for the insurgent organization, the Americans were being “shaky, erratic and vague.” The smaller Hizb-i-Islami group followed two weeks later.

That both groups are refusing to talk should hardly come as a surprise. In spite of the Obama administration’s talk about wanting a “political settlement” to the war, the White House’s strategy makes that goal little more than a mirage.

The current U.S. negotiating position is that the Taliban must cut all ties with the terrorist group al-Qaeda, recognize the Afghan constitution, lay down their arms, and accede to a substantial U.S. military presence until at least 2024. The U.S. has 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, its allies another 40,000. The current plan calls for a withdrawal of most of those troops by the end of 2014.

What is hard to figure out is why the White House thinks any of its demands—with the exception of the al-Qaeda proviso—have even a remote possibility of being achieved? Or exactly what the Americans think they are going to be “negotiating” with Mullah Omar of the Taliban, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar of Hezb-i-Islami, or Sirajuddin Haqqani of the Haqqani Group?

The Obama administration’s initial mistake was to surge some 33,000 troops into Afghanistan with the aim of beating up on the resistance and forcing it to negotiate from a position of weakness. That plan was always an illusion, particularly given the ability of the insurgents to fall back into Pakistan to regroup, rearm, and recruit. In any case, the idea that 140,000 foreign troops—the 330,000-member Afghan National Army (ANA) is incapable of even defending itself—could defeat a force of some 25,000 guerillas fighters in a country as vast or geographically formidable as Afghanistan is laughable.

As a series of recent attacks demonstrate, the surge failed to secure Kandahar and Helmand Province, two of its major targets. While NATO claims that insurgent attacks have fallen as a result of the U.S. offensive, independent data collected by the United Nations shows the opposite.

In short, after a decade of war and the expenditure of over $450 billion, Afghanistan is a less secure place than it was after the 2001 invasion. All the surge accomplished was to more deeply entrench the Taliban and elevate the casualty rate on all sides.

The second U.S. error was to estrange Pakistan by wooing India in order to rope New Delhi into Washington’s campaign to challenge China in Asia. First, Obama ditched his campaign pledge to address the volatile issue of Kashmir, the flashpoint for three wars between Indian and Pakistan. Second, the White House ignored India’s violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and allowed it to buy uranium on the world market—the so-called 1-2-3 Agreement—while refusing that same waiver to Pakistan. Add the American drone war and last November’s deadly attack on Pakistani border troops, and most Pakistanis are thoroughly alienated from the U.S. And yet a political solution to the Afghan war without Islamabad is simply impossible.

The U.S. demand to keep Special Forces troops in Afghanistan in order to continue its war on “terrorism” is not only a non-starter for the insurgents—the Taliban are, after all, the target of thousands of deadly “night raids” carried out by these same Special Forces—it is opposed by every country in the region save India. How the White House thinks it can bring the Taliban and its allies to the table while still trying to kill and capture them, or maintain a military presence in the face of almost total regional opposition, is hard to figure.

The more than 2,000 yearly night raids have eliminated many of the senior and mid-level Taliban leaders and atomized the organization. When it comes time to negotiate, NATO may find it has literally hundreds of leaders with whom it will have to cut a deal, not all of whom are on the same page.

That the insurgency would lay down its arms has a quality of magical thinking to it. Not only is the insurgency undefeated, but according to a leaked NATO report, captured Taliban think they are winning. The report—based on 27,000 interrogations—also found that “Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governancy over GIROA [Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan], usually as a result of government corruption, ethnic bias and lack of connection with local religious and tribal leaders.”

There is no popular support for the war, either in Afghanistan, the U.S., or among its allies. The most recent ABC Poll found that 69 percent of Americans want the war to end, and according to a poll in the Financial Times, 54 percent of the British want to withdraw immediately.

As for supporting the Afghan constitution, why would an undefeated insurgency that sees its enemies in disarray and looking at a 2014 U.S.-NATO withdrawal date, agree to a document they had no part in drafting?

None of this had to happen. Back in late 2007, Saudi Arabia carried a peace offer from the Taliban in which they agreed to cut ties to al-Qaeda—a pledge they reiterated in 2008—and accept a time table for foreign troop withdrawals. In return, a national unity government would replace the Karzai regime until elections could be held, and the constitution would be re-written.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations ignored the offer, apparently because they thought they could bring the Taliban to heel. It was thinking that verged on the hallucinatory.

The trump card holders these days are holed up in the high peaks or hiding in plain sight. Opium is booming in Helmand Province because the Taliban are protecting farmers from drug eradication teams, even blowing up tractors that are used to plow the crop under.

As the 2014 withdrawal date looms, the White House’s options are rapidly narrowing. If it holds to its plans to quarter troops in Afghanistan, the insurgency will fight on, and Washington’s only regional ally will be India, a country that can deliver virtually nothing toward a peace agreement. If it insists the insurgency recognize the Karzai regime and the constitution, it will be defending a deeply corrupt and unpopular government and a document that excluded the participation of country’s largest ethnic group, the Pashtun. Pashtuns make up the core of the Taliban.

How the U.S. managed to get itself into this mess needs to be closely examined. The State Department under Hillary Clinton has become little more than an arm of the Pentagon, and the White House has shown an unsettling penchant for resorting to violence. In the meantime Afghanistan is headed for a terrible smashup.

The World Bank estimates that 97 percent of Afghanistan’s economy is military related. The war is drawing to a finish, and there is no evidence that the U.S. or NATO has any intention or ability to keep the aid spigots wide open. Europe is in the middle of an economic meltdown and the U.S. economy is struggling.

NATO provides about $11 billion a year to support the Afghan army, a figure that will probably drop to about $4 to $5 billion after 2014. There is already talk of reducing the 335,000-man Afghan army to a more manageable and less expensive force of 230,000.

There is a window of opportunity, but only if the Obama administration takes advantage of it. A strategy that might work—when it comes to Afghanistan there are no guarantees—would include:

• A ceasefire and stand down of all offensive operations, including the highly unpopular “night raids.”

• Shelving any long-term plans to keep combat troops or Special Forces in the country, and shutting down the drone war in Pakistan.

• Urging the formation of a national unity government and calling for a constitutional convention.

• Sponsoring a regional conference aimed at keeping Afghanistan neutral and non-aligned.

• Insuring aid continues to flow into Afghanistan, particularly aimed at upgrading infrastructure, improving agriculture, and expanding education.

At home, the Congress should convene hearings aimed at examining how the U.S. got into Afghanistan, who made the key decisions concerning the war and regional strategy, and how the country can avoid such disasters in the future.

It may be too late and, in the end, NATO may tuck its tail between its legs and slink out of Afghanistan. But the deep divisions the war has created will continue, and civil war is a real possibility. The goal should be to prevent that, not to pursue an illusory dream of controlling the crossroads to Asia, a chimera that has drawn would be conquerors to that poor, ravaged land for a millennium.

For more of Conn Hallinan's essays visit Dispatches From the Edge. Meanwhile, his novels about the ancient Romans can be found at The Middle Empire Series.

John Stephenson for McClatchy reports that Afghan army chief Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi, the chief Afghan investigator in the killing of 17 civilians with which U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales has been charged, says "there's strong evidence that only one killer was involved, a view that puts him at odds with Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai."

A U.S. defense official said "such speculation was 'commonplace, especially in small villages and especially about something as horrific as an event like this.'" Referring to a relative of victims, Karzai said: "'In his family, in four rooms people were killed — children and women were killed — and then they were all brought together in one room and then set on fire. That, one man cannot do.'"

Gen. Karimi reiterated that. "And everybody said (to the president), 'Sir, it was not one person. ... How can one guy shoot people in four rooms, kill them, then lift them, bring them to one room and set them on fire?'"

But, if Bales acted alone, by returning to the base after the first round of shootings and heading out again for another, it's as if there were two shooters since it happened in two stages.* Or to put it another way, since it was two separate incidents, Bales is a serial killer.

In any event, failure to notice his exit not once but twice -- how often does an American soldier leave his base in Afghanistan in the middle of the night? -- makes the army complicit in the murders. From the soldiers on his base to the Pentagon to the president and everyone responsible for our Afghan policy, the killers were legion.

*Incidentally Marcy Wheeler of Empty Wheel speculates on a plausible explanation for Afghan suspicions of more than one shooter. (Thanks to Steve Hynd of the Agonist and Newshoggers for the link.)

… I’m suggesting that it’s possible Bales went first to Alkozai and in a spray of gunfire killed 4 or 5 and wounded at least 5 more, then returned to the base, told others what he had done, and more followed him in helicopters to Najiban. That would explain the larger number of men described by Dawood’s children, how 11 people in 4 rooms were killed in Wazir’s home, and also how Bales was able to drag all 11 bodies to one room and attempt to burn them (though the timing is still short, given that Najiban is at least a mile from the base and Bales was reportedly gone just an hour total on that second trip).