The lead article in today's New York Times, about the shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai by the Taliban in northern Pakistan, is instructive for anyone concerned about U.S. policy in that region of the world. At the age of eleven Malala had been outspoken in her support of women's education. Yesterday she and three of her classmates were shot and wounded by Taliban militants as they rode a bus to school.
Americans are understandably weary of the ten-year conflict in Afghanistan. Many have been critical of the drone program that has destroyed homes and taken innocent lives in Pakistan. But if there has ever been any doubt that the threat to U.S. security in the Afghan-Pakistani theater is real, the shooting of Ms. Yousafzai should dispel them.
One often hears the complaint that Al Qaeda no longer maintains a viable presence in Afghanistan. The Al Qaeda fighters remaining in the region are stuck in Pakistan, confined to cave dwellings where they are under constant pressure from drones or the Pakistani military. Our opponent in Afghanistan is the Taliban, a group with interests and concerns different than Al Qaeda. The Taliban, so goes this argument, does not present the same threat to U.S. security, thus it does not warrant the extreme effort being waged against it in Afghanistan.
Ms. Yousafszai's fate should expose the flaw in this logic. The Taliban gave shelter and aid to Al Qaeda. It hosted Al Qaeda as it planned the 9/11 attacks and refused to break that alliance when presented with evidence of Al Qaeda's act of war against the U.S. Before we can risk the Taliban coming back to power over all or part of Afghanistan, we must be sure that the Taliban will never make common cause with Al Qaeda again. As the shooting of Malala Yousafzai shows, we can never be sure of such an outcome.
My concern is not simply that what the Taliban did was wrong, though it
certainly was. Even more troubling, however, is that this attack shows the Taliban to exist in a completely
alternate universe of value from that occupied by the U.S. and its
allies (and, incidentally, from most Pakistanis and Afghans). What currency can be offered to, what deal can be struck with an opponent that perceives the urgent necessity of shooting a 14-year-old girl in the head and neck? A group that will go out of its way to commit this act is not a group that can be counted on to "leave well enough alone" where the U.S. is concerned. They do not calculate their interests in a way that would allow us to predict that, knowing the consequences of allying with Al Qaeda a second time, they would choose a different course. Moreover, we know for a certainty that our economy will continue to produce Carly Rae Jepsen songs and Julia Roberts movies and export them throughout the world via ever-faster digital technology. Who can believe that the would-be murderers of Malala Yousafzai would ever be content to co-exist peacefully with such a country, even if it withdrew its support from Israel and forswore any interference in the affairs of the Middle East?
For any U.S. government to abdicate the struggle against the Taliban and its Al Qaeda allies would be a gross dereliction of duty. The surge ordered by President Obama has not achieved its objective of breaking the momentum of the Taliban, but that does not argue for the wisdom of complete withdrawal. The President's plan calls for Afghan forces to "take the lead" in the fight against the Taliban in 2014, but we can expect American troops to remain in Afghanistan far beyond that threshold. Like the Axis powers of World War II, Afghanistan was the origin-point of an attack on the U.S. and its citizens, and like Germany and Japan, Afghanistan can expect to play host to U.S. soldiers for many years to come. It is tragically unfortunate that that occupation will be marked by continued violence and suffering, but as long as the Taliban enjoys robust traction in Afghan and Pakistani society, the threat they pose to U.S. security will demand an armed response.
6 comments:
Andy:
It may be a gross derilection of duty to abdicate the struggle, but you don't really say what we can do that would be effective. There's clearly no stomach for a large-scale military intervention in Afghanistan, and drone strikes might help surgically, but we really have no way of knowing whether or not reactions to those strikes are creating more recruits to the Taliban or Al Qaeda. The status quo seems to me to leave a good chance that the Taliban will gain strength - is there some viable alternative? What would you suggest?
Harry,
After 2012 we are almost certainly going to transition over to the "Biden strategy (i.e. the strategy that Joe Biden suggested in lieu of the surge)": draw down to between 20-30,000 troops, pull back to bases, leave the fight against the Taliban largely to the Karzai government's forces, with air and intel support from NATO. This is obviously an imperfect strategy, and envisions a long stalemate, but there is little alternative. Counterinsurgency has not worked, and there is little political will to continue pursuing it even if it could. At the same time, however, simply walking away from Afghanistan and letting the chips fall where they may is not an option. We may not be able to dictate a stable final outcome, but we can hang around with enough firepower to see to it that the Taliban is frustrated in its goals.
Andy: sounds like permanent stalemate and war of attrition. I'm trying, but I still can't see what good that would do....
Harry,
The good such a strategy might do is largely (but not entirely) measurable in the harm it would prevent. Keeping soldiers in Afghanistan denies its use to Al Qaeda as a base from which to stage terrorist attacks. Beyond this, it changes the political equation in Afghan society in a way that might, in the long term, create a more positive outcome. We can't rewrite the social contract for the Afghans, but we can (we must) keep our hand in the negotiation over what the future shape of Afghan state and society will look like. If we are resolute, eventually the Taliban insurgency will burn itself out, at which point the Afghans themselves can arrive at a political solution that will put an end to violence. I'm fine with the notion that our troops will be in Afghanistan indefinitely (the way they have been in Okinawa and Germany), and that it is up to the Afghans to work out a solution that makes the presence of our troops non-disruptive (again, like Japan and Germany). We don't have the right to dictate to the Afghans how they should live, but we do have a right to park ourselves there and make sure that we don't get any more little gifts like those of 9/11/01.
Andy, I hope you're right, but I'm not convinced. Will the Taliban burn itself out? Only time will tell, but they've had a pretty good run thus far, and there's no guarantee that they will any time soon.
Furthermore, I reject the comparison to Okinawa and Germany. Korea might be somewhat closer, but even so, those comparisons fail to account for the human cost. How many US soldiers were killed in Germany or Japan post August 1945? According to icasualties.org, there have been 271 US deaths in Afghanistan in 2012. Is the hope that someday we'll wear down the Taliban worth it?
Harry,
More than 400,000 U.S. military personnel died to counter the threat posed by Pearl Harbor. The fact that none of those casualties happened after 1945 is immaterial to the comparison between Germany, Japan, and Afghanistan. In WWII our military fought until the threat was nullified. The threat embodied by 9/11 is of a different kind, and unfortunately requires us to ask our military to fight longer. Even as that is so, however, we must keep perspective. To date 2045 U.S. military personnel have died in the Afghan-Pakistani theater. This is a tragic loss, but it is vastly eclipsed by the sacrifice imposed by WWII.
This has been a brutal year for our forces in Afghanistan, but the switch to a "Biden strategy" would entail fewer casualties. U.S. forces would withdraw to bases and only engage the Taliban in support of the Afghan military and on the terms most favorable to the US.
As to whether the Taliban would burn itself out, that is a function of our resolve. It is not merely a matter of them losing the will to fight, but of Afghan society at large deciding that enough is enough. The Taliban has nothing to offer the Afghan people but what they dished out to Malala Yousafzai. I'm confident that that path has only so far to go.
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