Let me start off by saying I don't have the same sense of foreboding during the current fighting season as I had last year. I don't sense major gains by the Afghan side in the news flow. But I don't sense a losing effort. So whatever we did over last winter had an effect even though the situation is not good yet.
The Trump administration is still pondering options:
President Donald Trump is “studying and considering his options” for a new approach to Afghanistan and the broader South Asia region, the White House said Friday after the president huddled with his top national security aides at Camp David.
We still need to help Afghanistan make gains to win the war, mind you--although my objectives are not high. Failing to make the incremental effort to defend what we've achieved so far would be monumentally stupid. Was Iraq after 2011 not a lesson enough?
Yet even major success in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban and other "international" jihadis runs into the jihadi safety net that sanctuary in Pakistan provides.
In light of the idea of options in the broader South Asia region, I will revive my suggestion that our efforts to win should include a major effort to create friendly forces on the ground inside Pakistan the way we have done inside Syria:
[America] may have an opportunity to use a post-Westphalian Lexington Rule to fight al Qaeda in Pakistan.
If we can't get Islamabad to control the frontier area, it is time to bypass Islamabad and deal directly with the tribes who don't recognize the control of Islamabad in the first place. We cannot allow the fictions of sovereignty to keep us from defending ourselves from fanatics who straddle the gray boundary that lies between reality and international law.
Using limited military assets such as special forces and drones to back civilian armed assets such as the CIA or contract personnel (with either former or seconded special forces from Western countries, or perhaps even hiring security companies to provide the personnel) or even Arab special forces that would live and work inside the frontier areas, we may be able to turn the frontier tribes against the jihadis who target us.
We should be able to start at the Afghan-Pakistan border and extend the network of anti-al Qaeda tribes toward the interior of Pakistan.
With the Syria example in mind, our own special forces should not be ruled out, as I ruled out 9 years ago.
If Pakistan won't help us, let's see if some Pakistanis are willing to help us.
Heck, in a decade or so, Pakistan working with American-backed Pakistani actors inside the frontier territories might seem as normal as this:
The Lebanese army launched an offensive on Saturday against an Islamic State enclave on the northeastern border with Syria, as the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah announced an assault on the militants from the Syrian side of the frontier.
I don't like these sub-state actors with so much autonomy. But Iran has set a precedent and I don't know why we can't try to use it.
Is that a new enough approach?
UPDATE: The president will give a speech tonight to set out the plan for Afghanistan.
I will be most interested in hearing what he says about Pakistan--and Iran and Russia to a lesser extent. President Obama, as a candidate, famously vowed he'd invade Pakistan if he had to in order to win, recall.
UPDATE: I don't understand people who say what we've done the last 16 years in Afghanistan hasn't "worked."
I'm really quite sorry that our enemies are persistent killers who won't go home.
And I'm not saying that we can't change what we are doing going forward. As I've suggested.
But we did achieve a lot by the time President Obama drew down our troop levels and scaled back our missions.
And do recall what Afghanistan was on the morning of September 11, 2001: Run by the Taliban which gave the al Qaeda killers a haven to attack us at home that day and inflict close to 3,000 dead.
Now Afghanistan has a government that doesn't destroy old statues (I realize our Left isn't as upset at that as they once were) or suppress girls or provide terrorists a home; and which in fact fights at our side every day to kill jihadis. If that isn't "working" its darned close to it, at some level.
We have not won. That is clear. And a year ago I sad the trajectory was bad. Now? Stalemate seems about right.
So let's win the war. Not everything has worked. But let's not forget a lot of what we did sure as Hell worked.
UPDATE: So the plan is 4,000 more US troops and allied forces (I assume 2,000 more) to help the Afghan security forces fight. Plus more of a focus on Pakistan's role in sustaining the Taliban inside Afghanistan.
This is welcome.
I don't understand the complaints that since the surge to 100,000 US and 40,000 allied forces didn't win the war, what can 4,000 more do?
This neglects the example of the US war in Iraq. Obama could send 5-6,000 US troops to Iraq in fall 2014 for Iraq War 2.0 and successfully help Iraq beat ISIL because unlike during the surge where 170,000 US forces fought, the Iraqis had enough troops to fight ISIL. Iraq needed our support but not our direct shooters.
Afghanistan now has 350,000 (I assume less than the authorized are in the field) unlike the situation in early 2009 there were 200,000 Afghan security forces. And the Afghans have been fighting.
So the Afghans can use more support but don't need American trigger pullers to fight the jihadis. But I assume we will have special forces taking on international jihadis more of a direct threat to America and our allies.
And the focus on Pakistan, with India thrown in as a threat to Pakistani influence in Afghanistan if Pakistan isn't more cooperative is welcome. Before Obama's two surges (prematurely ended for his reelection campaign), I worried about committing too many troops to Afghanistan because without dealing with the Pakistan sanctuary any gains in Afghanistan are under threat.
We'll see if this approach can move Pakistan enough even though we need Pakistan for our supply lines.
I wonder if we will work directly with the Pakistani tribes in the frontier area?
I do wish we had a supply line to Afghanistan through a post-mullah friendly Iran rather than through Pakistan or through the "Stans" that are more difficult and vulnerable to Russian blockage or influence.
UPDATE: NATO backs the Trump plan.
