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27.04.08, 10:04
In Afghanistan, a 'good' war too similar to Iraq
By: David Ignatius on: 25.04.2008 [21:03 ] (186 reads)
iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/162849
For many Americans who are weary of Iraq, Afghanistan is the "good war" where
the United States and its European allies are destroying what's left of
Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. That view certainly holds with the Democratic
presidential candidates, who talk of adding more troops in Afghanistan next
year even as they pull troops out of Iraq.
But "bad" Iraq has more in common with "good" Afghanistan than people
sometimes realize. Both have evolved into classic counterinsurgencies with a
"clear and hold" strategy for providing security; both show the benefits of a
military surge; and both run the risk of failure because of weak and corrupt
host governments.
Soon, the same US commander - General David Petraeus - will be overseeing both
battlefields. If confirmed in the new post as head of US Central Command,
Petraeus will have to balance American military needs in Iraq with those in
Afghanistan. Given that Petraeus literally wrote the book on counterinsurgency
for the military, his oversight should be good for both theaters.
The military surge in Afghanistan has largely gone unnoticed, in part because
the US commitment there is so much smaller. The 40-nation coalition force has
increased to about 62,000 today from about 42,000 in 2006. The American
contribution is by far the largest, with more than 30,000 troops, including a
new boost of 3,200 Marines just dispatched to southern Afghanistan, the area
of the toughest fighting. Last year, the US spent $4.9 billion on training and
equipment for the Afghan army, after spending $3.5 billion during the
preceding five years combined, according to a US official.
"Without question, additional US troops would be helpful in 2009," says
General Dan K. McNeill, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan. In
particular, he's looking for new troops to take over from the 3,200 newly
arrived Marines when they go back home in October. The success of the
Afghanistan surge is clear in the east, which has been the main area of US
responsibility. McNeill doubled US troops and spending there last year, and
added some innovative counterinsurgency tactics using the so-called Provincial
Reconstruction Teams. These PRTs are building roads, schools and other
development projects to help the Afghan government hold areas once they have
been cleared by US troops.
McNeill, like Petraeus in Iraq, has worked to isolate the hardcore enemy from
those who can be co-opted. He describes his adversary not as the Taliban (some
of whom have joined the Afghan Parliament), but as extremist warlords who give
support to Al-Qaeda.
To bolster the Afghan police, McNeill adopted a new strategy for the country's
40 most violent districts, known as Focused District Development. Each month,
police are pulled from a half-dozen of these districts and replaced by an
elite national force, while the local cops are retrained and the most corrupt
and incompetent are purged.
Despite (or perhaps because of) McNeill's success in attacking insurgents'
safe havens, they are turning to Iraq-style suicide bombings. The latest data
show that combined military and civilian casualties are up 43 percent so far
this year compared with 2007, with more than half that total coming from
suicide attacks and 72 percent in the volatile southern region.
This insecurity is compounded by the failings of the government of President
Hamid Karzai. "What we see is a government that is weak and corrupt," says
Yonus Qanooni, the speaker of the Afghan Parliament. He's a leader of the
opposition, so his comment isn't surprising, but he expresses a frustration
with the Karzai government that's widely shared in Afghanistan.
William Wood, the US ambassador, tries to put Afghanistan's two trends into
perspective: "There is deterioration in terms of personal security. People are
more frightened. It's the problems with the police; it's corruption; it's weak
local governance." At the same time, he stresses, "national security is
stronger. The insurgents won't unseat the government. They won't take over
provincial capitals. They won't win."
Wood and McNeill are working with Karzai to tackle the political problems
before they overwhelm the battlefield gains. The Afghans have created a new
local governance directorate to weed out poor performers. Since last August,
they've sacked eight of 34 provincial governors. The government says it is
also trying to reduce opium production, a problem that keeps getting worse
because of what analysts say is high-level corruption.
It's easier to be optimistic in Afghanistan than in Iraq, in part because the
Afghan sense of nationhood is so much stronger. But what's striking is how
many common themes one finds in these two conflicts - and how many
opportunities to apply lessons learned on one battlefield to the other.
