Obama finally made his move and overruled his commanders. He will withdraw his forces from Afghanistan significantly and fast. By the time he is up for a re-election, the 33,000 surge that he granted his military commanders in Afghanistan, following his 2009 West Point pronouncement, is what he will take away first. As I had noticed then, this surge is time-restrained and the commanders have been given their opportunity to show what they can do with it. Ultimately, what delivered was not this force but Biden’s preferred special ops — in this case the Navy SEALs and the CIA combined. Counterinsurgencies are a long drawn affair, years for sure (even decades as the Malaysian and Sri Lankan experiences show), but definitely more than what the US’s attention span can handle. Counter-terrorism for them and for the remaining task at hand in the Af-Pak theatre is what will deliver the endgame.
But will there be an endgame as we envision, and will there be a single winner in this contest? Perhaps we err if we think so. Instead, it will constitute endgames at various levels quite unlike a clean one-sided undertaking a la a game of tennis; what is more likely to shape up will be a rough game of rugby with quarters and halves, each with their own melees and an incremental summation of the contest. The US’s withdrawal signals the first endgame, though it is a major one. As one notices, there are no winners even if the US propounds Osama’s elimination as one. There are newer challenges afoot: bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan; despite Osama, peace still has not come. Peace and stability will be predicated on a sustaining political order that is inclusive and reflects Afghan aspirations. The structure might hold in its present form but only transitionally — it is more likely to mutate into something very home grown, a local contraption, easy on the palate. Will there be just one winner in this 10-year-long contest? If there is one, this war will not see an end. All must win; that is the jirga culture.
Coming back to Obama and his decision. He has read the tealeaves perfectly. A statesman will always have instincts, those that are not worked through organisational support, which will filter up a decision. George W Bush was an organisational leader. Obama is a strange mix. Primarily an instinctive man, he lets the system evolve a solution. When one is in disagreement with his instinct, a special leader will stick his neck out and go out on a limb. On Afghanistan, he made the right call. Sages say, “Do not feed a failure.” This means not putting your money in a deep hole called Afghanistan. And, by a little extension, Pakistan.
What has the Obama decision done to Afghanistan? For one, accepted a failure: the surge did not work. In fact, the military solution has not delivered — it is time to change tack. The Powell Doctrine suggests that if you persist with force, it will eventually succeed. But that is a sign of a poor strategy unless you are the US. Petraeus and his like conform to the same theory, but are faced with an Obama who has his instincts, his constituencies, the budget and the economy, and his larger programme of reform informing his decisions. Obama declared so when he said it is time to build the US rather than a remote country that has proven difficult to manage let alone overcome.
Someone once said that war and the application of force is a continuum of policy. It indeed is but only when all other options have been exhausted. When the US launched its riposte to 9/11, it went into a war, that too of a different kind, and had not yet exhausted all other options — the most fundamental mistake in policy. As such it did not have a clear purpose in application of force, nor the right mix of forces and neither the right strategies. As such it played out a draw in Afghanistan. Obama knew that by instinct but, like all minority stakeholders when thrust into the forefront, had to prove himself to be ‘holier than the Pope’. He did, and after some more losses in both time and treasure, had to fall back to what he knew always to be right in the first place. He needed space and has won it. Military force is applied when space is lost and recreates space for politics, but when applied sparingly, will devour the available space and, by default, create the justification of such employment. If they do not win, they are unable to recreate space as was the case in Afghanistan, and statesmen will recall a misstep and seek out space through other means. Obama has.
Enter Petraeus in a reincarnation. The CIA will lead both the political negotiations and the drone-cum-special forces combined as the main military plank of the next couple of years of operational methodology. He is a hard-headed pedagogue; it depends how he plays his hand in this game especially since he has remained steadfastly opposed to the counter-terrorism approach of Joe Biden, the main-play in the new American strategy.
What does it have in it for Pakistan? Short answer: space. Despite that, Pakistan is pushed to do something in North Waziristan, meaning the Haqqani group — another imperial obsession. The dynamics of space where negotiation is an equally important facet will mean engaging all inimical groups. Of those, there are three, principally: Mullah Omar, Haqqani and Hekmatyar. The rest inside Afghanistan are nestled under some supervision and hardly as difficult to conciliate. What will be needed is to bring the big three into the net of reconciliation and reintegrate them into a political process. At the same time, counter-terrorism will continue to hunt out the remaining al Qaeda and the dissidents, principally in Pakistan’s tribal regions. That is precisely the policy that Pakistan has proffered now for some time: let us dissemble the large terrorist network into its more definable concoctions and mete out to each their own medicine. Pakistan will now be able to replicate that in its own territories, though it must be seen to actively join hands in the US’s counter-terrorism plank to eliminate al Qaeda from within our territorial midst — with equally salubrious dividends to Pakistan’s own national cause.
The key to seeking advantage in any interactive play of varying forces is directly proportional to the availability of space in such an interaction. The foremost requisite for a favourable consequence remains the ability to recognise such space. When none is available it must be created. Obama created space for himself in all manifestations domestically and in respect of Afghanistan. By default, it has endowed space to Pakistan. Does Pakistan recognise it and does it have the acumen to use it? One man I know understands it well and may just be the happier for it; trust Kayani to use a lot of it even if it would mean tramping a bit of the political turf. Americans know it well too and may wish to squeeze some from under his feet. Lies and innuendo be damned.
The writer is a political and defence analyst