Afghanistan: It’s Too Late. By Ahmed Rashid // Trump in the Middle East: The New Brutality\
When Donald Trump’s
secretary of defense, James Mattis, was called before the Senate Armed Services
Committee this week to testify about the conflict in Afghanistan, he was
unusually blunt: “We are not winning in Afghanistan right now,” he said. The
Taliban have been on a dramatic offensive, he acknowledged, the security
situation continues to deteriorate, and the Afghan government holds
considerably less territory than it did a year ago. In other words, prospects
for any sort of positive outcome are as remote as they have been in this
sixteen-year war—the longest war in American history.
Yet Trump - and Mattis’s - solution
to this unwinnable war seems to be once again to send more troops. On Tuesday,
Trump announced that the military itself would be given full authority to
decide how many troops it needs. (By leaving all decisions in the hands of the
military, he has abandoned the usual inter-agency consultations, especially
with the State Department.) And Mattis is talking about a review to be
completed in July that could add as many as 5,000 troops. It may be too late.
Afghanistan now faces
a far deeper crisis than many seem to understand. Warlords and
politicians - including cabinet members - are calling for the resignation of
President Ashraf Ghani and his security ministers, accusing them of
incompetence, arrogance, and stirring up ethnic hatred. There are as many as
ten public demonstrations a day in the streets of Kabul, carried out by young
people and by relatives of those killed in recent bomb attacks.
In early June multiple
suicide bombings in Kabul killed over 170 people and wounded some 500.
Terrorists managed to get a massive truck bomb into the heavily guarded
diplomatic quarter, where it exploded, killing mainly civilians—a clear
indication of collusion with security officers. Neither the Taliban nor the
Islamic State claimed responsibility. The Taliban have now launched ground
offensives to take more territory and to capture the northern city of Kunduz, a
city of almost 300,000 that they tried twice last year to seize. If it falls
now to the Taliban it would be the first major city they have re-occupied.
Afghanistan’s
neighbors, meanwhile, are becoming increasingly restive about the US-led
counterinsurgency: Pakistan continues to give sanctuary to the Taliban
leadership, including the Haqqani group - the most vicious arm of the
Taliban - while Iran and Russia are also providing support (the exact amount is
unknown) to the Taliban. These regional powers believe that the Taliban
could provide a bulwark against the spread of ISIS into their
territories and do not want Pakistan to monopolize influence over the Taliban. They
want to limit US power in the region. The influence of ISIS in
Afghanistan, which was once relegated to the single eastern province of
Nangarhar, is now expanding, and the group claimed responsibility for a
horrendous early March attack on Kabul’s military hospital in which fifty
patients and doctors were killed and ninety wounded.
Still, even more
dangerous than the deteriorating security situation is the political crisis now
unfolding in Kabul.. read more:
see also
Trump’s growing dependence on a military
strategy around the world will reduce US influence with its allies and all
major powers. It also makes it less likely that they will join what Trump hopes
will be a crusade against the Islamic State. Autocrats around the world will
follow the American example and be encouraged to abandon diplomacy and politics
and use force to get their way. We will be left with a US that is set on
inflaming conflicts rather than ending them, a US that abandons any sense of
global responsibility and pays no regard to international agreements. A new
global era has begun in which American allies can no longer rely on American
leadership. It may be the most dangerous period we have seen in our
lifetimes...
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/03/27/trump-in-the-middle-east-the-new-brutality/
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