The Army—or at least its lower echelons—had some role in giving refuge to Usama Bin Laden.   There is no way anyone can deny why else the head of al-Qaida resided inside Pakistan for so many years without being traced even by the widening electronic tentacles of America’s National Security Agency (NSA) .  After the assassination of Bin Laden at the hands of the U.S. Special Forces on May 1, the pro-al-Qaida functionaries of Pakistan were so incensed that they carried out an attack on that country’s naval base as revenge.  The Pakistan investigative journalist—Saleem Shahzad’s “crime” was that he disclosed the ISI-al-Qaida connections related to that attack.

The ISI—Pakistan’s spy agency—cannot gather so much power and clout unless it has the support of its powerful Corps commanders.  No one is suggesting that the Corps commanders also supported or were even aware of the presence of Bin Laden inside Pakistan.  We have no such evidence at this point.  However, the middle ranks of the ISI seem to have drawn their own conclusions about how far they could go on that issue.  The most dangerous aspect of that frame of mind is that it regarded Bin Laden a “hero.”

The very nature of spy work is such that the functionaries—especially in most Third World countries—could get away with murder in terms of remaining operationally autonomous of the upper echelon of  the security bureaucracy.  And given the explosive nature of Pakistani internal politics, such independence can lead to awful results, such as the murder of Saleem Shahzad, because he was disclosing the state “secrets” by telling the world of the ISI-al-Qaida’s connections.

The security agencies do not want the world to know of their demons and rogue elements.  In  the world of security agencies, those elements are also regarded as “patriotic” and are not to be exposed.  Besides, while the journalists are driven by the desire to uncover the failed policies of  their countries of residence (and other countries), the “security Nazi” implementers of the failed policies envisage the investigative role of the journalists as “treason.” And the “traitors” have to be ruthlessly eliminated in order to discourage other journalists.

While the world was being exposed to the growing dysfunctionalities of the Pakistani Army, there was another story about the nuclear proliferation, in which Dr. A. Q. Khan—the “father” of Pakistani nuclear weapons—accused some of the top former Army officials to have been involved in getting huge payoffs for providing the nuclear know-how to the rogue regime of Kim Jong Il.  As expected, there were denials from the ones whose names were disclosed.  The world may or may not know the “real” and the whole truth behind this episode. However, Pakistan continues to sink in deeper in the widening whirlpool of dysfunctionalities.

The choices for Pakistan are also stark.  The United States wishes for the Army to transform its domestic front into a long-term battlefield with the Pakistani Islamists, elements that remain an important tool of the Army’s ongoing battles with India.  Washington also wants the Army to seal the borders with Afghanistan so that the NATO’s ongoing war with the Taliban’s of Afghanistan can be won. The fulfillment of the U.S. agenda is not deemed as worth the price by the Army.  Thus, the impasse continues between Washington and Islamabad.

What is favoring Pakistan is the fact the Obama administration direly needs its assistance and might be willing to pay any price to do it.  However, the window of opportunity for Pakistan might be closing soon if the NATO forces continue to encounter bloodier realities in the battlefields of Afghanistan in the coming months than are right now.  May be that is what Pakistan really wants, because such a scenario also promises to escalate the desperation of the lone superpower.  President Barack Obama has made a serious mistake by calling Afghanistan the “right” war.  Now he must win it, or  at least create some semblance of victory in order to reasonably increase his chances of reelection (even though his chances of reelection substantially depend on the improving the performance of the U.S. economy and especially improving the employment figures).

The only way of eradicating the whirlpools of dysfunctionalities for the Pakistani Army is to reform its own ranks.  It has to rid itself of the Islamists, whose Jihadist framework has no room for peaceful development.  If the United States really wishes to develop a healthy strategic relationship with Pakistan (instead of constantly envisaging it as strategic errand boy to win its war in Afghanistan) it has no choice but to spend a lot of time in understanding the security concerns of that  country, instead of dismissing it. Pakistan needs assistance, but most of that assistance has to be in the field of economic development and institution building.  It has to emerge as a viable economic actor before it can spend its resources in building its military muscles.

The awesome asymmetry of power between the United States and the Taliban of Afghanistan is such that it creates a spurious sense of hubris in Washington that it alone can decide the pace and intensity of the military conflict, and that it alone can set the timetable for the withdrawal of its forces from the conflict zone.  That was the major assumption of Henry Kissinger’s approach to negotiating the modalities of bringing about an end to the conflict with the North Vietnamese representatives in the 1970s.  The United States found out, to its bitter surprise, how wrong Kissinger really was then.  The North Vietnamese had a stout sense of America’s growing vulnerabilities – the public war protest movement and the intensifying refusal of the U.S. Congress to finance that war.

In Iraq, thanks to the Sahwa movement of the Sunni Iraqi insurgents, the United States did not face defeat, even though it came to the precipice of it.  It eventually succeeded in creating a false semblance of victory, when the level of violence went down in Iraq and the Bush administration brought about major troop withdrawals.  However, as we are finding out on a weekly basis, the conflict in Iraq is far from over.  Thus, only future historians will decide whether the United States won or lost in Iraq.

Things are entirely different in Afghanistan in 2011.  It is a conflict that refuses to go away.  America cannot decide whether or not it wants to implement the counterinsurgency (CI) doctrine in Afghanistan that General David Petraeus famously (and ostensibly successfully) implemented in Iraq.  President Obama’s chief objective is to create some ground realities that would convince the highly skeptical American voters that he is winning in Afghanistan.  So, he is putting all his eggs into the basket of Counterterrorism (CT) strategy, which does not require a high number of boots on the ground in Afghanistan.  There seems to be a profound conclusion in Washington that there will be a credible government in Kabul by July 2012 that would be able to govern the entire country, and that Afghanistan’s security forces will be able to replace the international security assistance forces (ISAF).  That variable became an important aspect of the “talking points” that the talking heads in Washington have been using since President Obama’s speech on June 22, 2011.

However, the ground realities in Afghanistan have a special way of making fools of all of the Washington-based (or Kabul-based for that matter) experts whose full-time indulgence is to live in a make-believe world.  The surprise attack of June 29, 2001, when the heavily guarded InterContinental Hotel was attacked by Taliban suicide attackers, jolted all the forecasters to reexamine their conclusions regarding America’s troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.  President Hamid Karzai described it as “the worst attack in the Afghan capital for months…”  What is important to note is that, by carrying out that attack, the insurgents are “trying to tighten their psychological grip on the capital with a two-pronged campaign to sow urban terror and extend their influence in surrounding provinces.”

So, what should the Obama administration do now?  The most obvious and vital option is to abandon all notions of withdrawal of American troops and introduce a mega-strategy to fix Afghanistan through nation-building.  I know, “nation-building” is currently a four letter word in Washington, and there is absolutely no constituency for it there.  However, the aforementioned Pottery Barn rule is just as applicable to President Obama today as it was applicable to President Bush in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.  The only difference is that Iraq in 2011 continues to create a spurious sense of stability, which is eroding steadily, while political stability in Afghanistan has never existed since 1978, when it was invaded and occupied by the Former Soviet Union.

America’s post-World War II success stories – Japan and Germany – are shining examples of nation-building that lasted over several decades.  And both of those countries were “modern” polities before the war.  Afghanistan also requires nation-building.  However, unlike Germany and Japan of the post-World War II years, it will require an infinitely longer period of time to fix.  It has remained a hellish place since 1978.  It is an absolutely corrupt society with a very high degree of illiteracy, gross absence of institutions, and rules of engagement for “good governance.”  It is a place where obscurantism rules all walks of life.  It has a large expatriate community that can play a crucial role in nation-building.  However, that community is too smart to resettle in Afghanistan as long as warlordism, an opium trade, and religion-based terrorism rule the day.  But, they are likely to return to Afghanistan if the Obama administration signals its serious commitment to nation-building strategy in Afghanistan.

The option of nation-building may appear more palatable for the Obama administration if it considers the fact that it may have no intention of totally withdrawing from Afghanistan.  If it plans to keep a sizeable number of troops in country for the purpose of continuing its exercise of its counterterrorism (CT) strategy, the implementation of that strategy without elaborate  nation-building promises to sink that country deeper into chaos and instability.  Make no mistake, these are variables that both al-Qaida and the Taliban prefer, in order to escalate their own effective capabilities for carrying out deadly attacks and mayhem.

The fact that Bin Laden was living in Abbottabad, Pakistan, gives ample reasons for the United States to become even more suspicious of that country’s Army. One American option is to exchange lot of acrimonious accusations with Pakistan. Another is to use this opportunity to see what the Pakistani government – more to the point, its Army – wants, what its fears and security concerns are in Afghanistan, and how can they be ameliorated.

It is not that the United States is totally clueless on this issue. The Obama administration’s South Asia experts were given ample credit for their expertise in tracking and killing Bin Laden. The same group should be asked to prepare a study – since the Obama administration is so big on studying every issue ad infinitum – on Pakistani security interests and then asking itself how many of those interests deserve America’s immediate attention.

The Pakistani Army, for its part, must earnestly revisit the issues of using the Islamist card in Afghanistan, and of using the carrot and stick approach toward Islamist extremist groups within the borders of their country. Islamist activism has to be restrained through the use of force when necessary, but they should also be offered abundant incentives to substantially lower their highly inflammatory rhetoric. If the United States incorporates Pakistan’s security concerns in its new strategy, then Pakistan must prove that it also shares and is willing to promote America’s security interests in Afghanistan.

From the U.S. perspective, the war in Afghanistan remains an integral part of its global war on terrorism, even though that phrase has been largely abandoned by the Obama administration. As such, there has been a very narrow focus on developing counterterrorism strategy. Since the CT strategy has been instrumental in eliminating a large number of al-Qaida’s leadership, including its head, there is that risk that euphoria related to the seeming success of that strategy will lead Washington to become even more focused on the CT approach.

Afghanistan needs a comprehensive approach and a strategy that involves emphasis on counterinsurgency – “clear, hold, and build” – and, at the same time, a determined effort to build its civilian institutions. Such an approach will demand enormous American resources, but Washington has to keep in mind that it is really fighting a war and is not just involved in a counterterrorism operation.

For Pakistan, Afghanistan poses a larger problem. The unpredictable wild swings in Afghanistan’s security directly affect the security of Pakistan. Since Pakistan has a number of secessionist forces – most notably in Baluchistan – the Army of that country has been quite voluble about the role of India in Afghanistan. The Pakistani charge is that India is investing its ample resources in supporting the fissiparous forces in that province. The Obama administration has been systematically ignoring the seriousness of Pakistan’s security concerns related to India’s presence in Afghanistan.

So, from the Pakistani side, the cavalier – indeed haughty – behavior of the United States has to be countered with an equally cavalier response from Islamabad about America’s war-related objectives in Afghanistan. Thus far, the events have proven that this type of action-reaction from Washington and Islamabad is not helping either side. Since Pakistan is a weaker of the two actors in this tussle, it is likely to do what it must in order to undermine Washington’s interests merely as a tactic to capture America’s attention in regard to its security interests. But a better approach from Washington is to do what it can to promote Pakistan’s security interests in Afghanistan. The details of such an approach can be spelled out through a series of meetings between American and Pakistani officials. Indeed, the latter have been quite vocal in pointing out what they want from the United States. So, the issue is not a problem of communication. Rather, the issue is a problem of the unwillingness of Washington to listen, consider, and incorporate Pakistan’s security interests.

The timing of a change of strategy is most appropriate for the United States, since it has achieved victory in eliminating Bin Laden. Since the post-Bin Laden era is likely to be full of its own challenges and hopes, Washington must become bold and proactive in creating a new strategy toward both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

What is driving the war in Afghanistan is not an effective strategy.  Rather, it is just a “warmed over” strategy from Iraq, which aims to use increased force deployment (“surge”) to implement a counterinsurgency strategy that helped stabilize Iraq largely because of the Sahwa movement – i.e., the decision of the Sunni insurgents to side with the U.S. military in fighting al-Qaida.  As a result, Iraq was stabilized. However, the obdurate Sunni-Shia conflict is still there.

The Kurds are still dreaming to have a separate homeland in Northern Iraq.  Al-Qaida is very much alive and active, and
seems to be widening the scope and areas of its activities in that country.  The United States’ focus in Iraq these days is to negotiate a long-term deal whereby it can retain a large portion of its military forces in that country.  In other words, George W. Bush’s dream of making Iraq a permanent American colony is very much alive.  Except that Obama has been very suave in pursuing it.

In the absence of a sui generis strategy to win the war in Afghanistan, the Obama administration initially went along with implanting the Iraqi “surge” model in Afghanistan.  But there are no Sunni insurgents to fight on the side of the U.S. troops.  There is no hard-nosed implementation of the type of “clear, hold, build” strategy that is being implemented in Afghanistan.  On the contrary, when Vice President Joseph Biden – who fancies himself as some sort of expert on the Middle East and South Asia – insisted that a counterinsurgency (CI) model of dealing with the war in Afghanistan is not a suitable one and advocated a counterterrorism (CT) approach, the Obama administration kept insisting to Petraeus to do just that.  The “political general” was forced to go along with that suggestion.

Consequently, there is no clear picture regarding what strategy the United States is really applying in Afghanistan – perhaps a blend of CI and CT.  As the 2012 presidential elections approach, the Obama administration will be driven by the same urgency for developing a “quick-fix” type of strategy to guarantee Obama’s reelection as George W. Bush did in 2004 for winning his own second term.

President Obama’s decision to appoint a new national security team should be viewed against this backdrop.  The requirement for having a new team emerged because of the decision of Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, to retire.  Hillary Clinton was not interested in taking over his job, so Leon Panetta, the current head of the CIA, was tapped to head the Department of Defense.  Petraeus’ next appointment – as if the celebrated general needed another feather in his cap – should have been Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. However, Petraeus could not shed the image as “Bush’s general” with Obama’s inside advisors.  But
Obama needed the general “inside the tent” so to speak, in order to win his next term.  So, he was given the job of CIA Chief,  while “Obama’s general,” the U.S. Marine Corps’ James E. Cartwright, got the job as the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Petraeus’ successor will be Lieutenant General John Allen, current Deputy Commander of the USCENTCOM.  Allen was a safe choice because he was stationed in Iraq.  As such, he has “hands on” experience in implementing the surge strategy.  Even though there is only a semblance of the surge strategy being applied in Afghanistan, Allen’s appointment seems to have been done to stifle criticism related to a potential discontinuity in the conduct of the war in Afghanistan.

The most promising part of this new national security team is the appointment of Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker – who performed so effectively along with General Petraeus – as the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq.  In that capacity, he not only developed a good rapport with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, but he also complemented Petraeus’ role as his military counterpart in that country.  The most annoying aspect of watching the top U.S. operatives in Afghanistan was the prickly U.S. Ambassador, Carl Eikenberry, who did not get along with General Stanley McChrystal or with President Hamid Karzai.  He should have been fired from that job months ago.

One has to wonder why President Obama left Eikenberry in that job for this long.  It was either Obama’s lack of experience
in foreign policy, or his lack of focus on Afghanistan, that resulted in Eikenberry remaining as a sore spot inside the U.S. power circles in Afghanistan.  One has to hope that things are likely to improve now that Ambassador Crocker will be in charge of diplomatic affairs.

As the new team is confirmed and put into place in the next several weeks, there is hope that the current U.S. strategy in Afghanistan will also change.  A winning strategy in Afghanistan must take into consideration Pakistan’s genuine national security concerns, thereby enabling that country to become a true U.S. partner in winning this war.  However, considering that U.S.-Pakistan ties have been deteriorating in the recent past, “hoping for things to get better” is definitely not the way for the lone superpower to conduct business in the Afghan war.

The Arab awakening is about self-reliance in ousting the scourge of dictatorship.  It is about telling the great powers to keep their phony sympathies for the plight of the Arabs in their respective pockets and stay the hell out.  They can pass U.N. resolutions condemning the Libyan crazed dictator and make flowery speeches for their domestic audiences, who are virtually ignorant of their respective policies, which are largely responsible for sustaining those the dictators in power.  But, please, no military intervention is required.  Because such a measure might become a pretext for Washington to place a Western stooge in power to run Libya.  He is likely to be a lot more pliable than Qaddafi in fulfilling the West’s wishes, but he will certainly not be a man of the people.  In that sense, any involvement of an outside power will kill the dream of the emergence of governmental legitimacy in Libya.

The Arab awakening is fresh and pure in that it is not imposed from the outside; it is not entering the borders of any Arab state riding in the tanks of Western forces, as was the case in Iraq in 2003.  It is about the exercise of people power through democracy.  People have initiated it, and people will bring it to a peaceful close when their representatives are elected.  While no specific modalities of democracy have yet been instituted even in Tunisia and Egypt, all signs are there for such a development.  The Islamists are staying on the sidelines, and even when they are showing their faces – as in the case of Rachid Ghannushi of the al-Nahda Party in Tunisia, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – they are very much in support of democracy.  However, the West should not hold its breath for the emergence of a secular democracy anywhere.  In all likelihood, the emerging system of government in the Arab world will be democratic, but one in which Islamic parties will also have a role.

During the colonial era, the aspirations of the people in the enslaved Arab countries were repeatedly undermined by the Western occupiers.  When they left, their appointed autocrats continued that process even more brutally than the Western colonialists.  In the Cold War years, the enslavement of the Arab masses continued because it was deemed by the United States as well as the Soviet Union as totally irrelevant to their respective agendas of achieving victory over the other.  In other words, the powers-that-be of the Cold War era trumped the Arabs’ chances of breaking out from the harness of slavery and subservience.

The current outbursts of people power in the Arab world surprised—or even shocked—the great powers of the post-Cold War era.  What a magnificent sight it was to see leaders in Washington, London, Paris, and other major capitals stumble over each other while attempting to develop their respective responses to the Arab uprising.  Even the Chinese leaders were visibly shaken when the phrase “Jasmine Revolution” popped up on that country’s social networks.  The successors of Mao Zedong, the quintessential “revolutionary” of a bygone era, were visibly shaken by the mere mention of the word revolution.  The fact that the Jasmine revolution brought about regime change in Tunisia and Egypt—and might create similar results in China—was proving to be the beginning of a nightmare for the leaders in Beijing.  Those leaders have not only abandoned their Maoist revolutionary perspectives, but, along with it, they have also shed the famous Mao jacket, which symbolized an era when leaders not only emerged from the masses, but also proudly harped on their proletarian background.

But the Arab awakening’s worst potential enemy is not China, which is scared of any change that rides on the shoulders of the people – even though the great people’s revolution rode into China on the shoulders of the masses.  The potential worst enemies of the Arab awakening are the Western democratic nations that had supported the tyrannical rulers for decades, and that could use the pretext of intervening in Libya or other tactics to forestall the ouster of Qaddafi and the remaining dictators from Arab countries.  A number of them took billions of dollars as “blood money” from Qaddafi and “legitimized” his regime by removing Libya from the list of nations sponsoring terrorism.  Then they started selling arms to Libya, which the crazed dictator is now using against his own people. Who could forget George W. Bush’s “poodle,” Tony Blair’s infamous handshake with Muammar Qaddafi in Libya?

Denouncing the Western response to the Arab awakening, the Guardian’s Seumas Milne was spot-on when he wrote, “The reality is that the western powers which have backed authoritarian kleptocrats across the Middle East for decades now face a loss of power in the most strategically sensitive region of the world as a result of the Arab uprisings and the prospect of representative governments. They are evidently determined to appropriate the revolutionary process wherever possible, limiting it to cosmetic change that allows continued control of the region.”

It appears that Libya is viewed by the governments in Washington, London, Paris, Rome, and elsewhere as “low hanging fruit” for “easy picking.”  It has a lot of high quality oil and low indigenous talent, which will prove to be a cheap source of sustaining the high standard of living in the West through an influx of Western expatriates.  And the best way to get an “inside track” is to oust the dictator and establish a system of sycophant rulers in Libya who will continue to do the West’s bidding.  But such an act will prove to be a death-knell for the great democratic promise of the Arab awakening.

Before anyone gets carried away about any Western participation in enforcing no-fly zones on Libya, it should be understood that one very important pre-requisite of such an action is the bombing of Libyan air defenses.  Imagine the political fallout – especially if there were any civilian loss of life – of such a move so soon after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.  The U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, was quite mindful of that reality when he said, “A no-fly zone would first require taking out Libyan air defenses, an act of war. It would be expensive and difficult to maintain. It would drain resources from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it would put the U.S. at war in a third Muslim country.”  And, I must conclude by quoting another of Milne’s observations about the Arab awakening.  He said, “The Arab revolution will be made by Arabs, or it won’t be a revolution at all.” 

The natural American interventionist impulse is surging once again.  This time the pretext is to save the Libyans from Muammar Qaddafi.  The United States and the U.K. are reportedly positioning their military assets to impose no-fly zones in Libya.  At least superficially, that sounds like a good measure, which would scare Qaddafi into submission.  But one has to be apprehensive about such “good measures.”  Past American interventionism in the Muslim world has established that there is no such thing as intervention to improve the lot of the populace.  That did not happen in 1953, when the CIA and the British intelligence service colluded to bring Mohammad Reza Pahlevi to power.  The post-Saddam Iraq is tenuous at best.  Afghanistan continues to teeter at the brink of disaster.  The CIA-backed intervention that ousted Sukarno of Indonesia in 1965 brought to power a military dictator, Suharto, who ruled that country with an iron fist for several decades. 

The Arab awakening is about self-reliance in ousting the scourge of dictatorship.  It is about telling the great powers to keep their phony sympathies for the plight of the Arabs in their respective pockets and stay the hell out.  They can pass U.N. resolutions condemning the Libyan crazed dictator and make flowery speeches for their domestic audiences, who are virtually ignorant of their respective policies, which are largely responsible for sustaining those the dictators in power.  But, please, no military intervention is required.  Because such a measure might become a pretext for Washington to place a Western stooge in power to run Libya.  He is likely to be a lot more pliable than Qaddafi in fulfilling the West’s wishes, but he will certainly not be a man of the people.  In that sense, any involvement of an outside power will kill the dream of the emergence of governmental legitimacy in Libya.

The Arab awakening is fresh and pure in that it is not imposed from the outside; it is not entering the borders of any Arab state riding in the tanks of Western forces, as was the case in Iraq in 2003.  It is about the exercise of people power through democracy.  People have initiated it, and people will bring it to a peaceful close when their representatives are elected.  While no specific modalities of democracy have yet been instituted even in Tunisia and Egypt, all signs are there for such a development.  The Islamists are staying on the sidelines, and even when they are showing their faces – as in the case of Rachid Ghannushi of the al-Nahda Party in Tunisia, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – they are very much in support of democracy.  However, the West should not hold its breath for the emergence of a secular democracy anywhere.  In all likelihood, the emerging system of government in the Arab world will be democratic, but one in which Islamic parties will also have a role.

During the colonial era, the aspirations of the people in the enslaved Arab countries were repeatedly undermined by the Western occupiers.  When they left, their appointed autocrats continued that process even more brutally than the Western colonialists.  In the Cold War years, the enslavement of the Arab masses continued because it was deemed by the United States as well as the Soviet Union as totally irrelevant to their respective agendas of achieving victory over the other.  In other words, the powers-that-be of the Cold War era trumped the Arabs’ chances of breaking out from the harness of slavery and subservience.

The current outbursts of people power in the Arab world surprised—or even shocked—the great powers of the post-Cold War era.  What a magnificent sight it was to see leaders in Washington, London, Paris, and other major capitals stumble over each other while attempting to develop their respective responses to the Arab uprising.  Even the Chinese leaders were visibly shaken when the phrase “Jasmine Revolution” popped up on that country’s social networks.  The successors of Mao Zedong, the quintessential “revolutionary” of a bygone era, were visibly shaken by the mere mention of the word revolution.  The fact that the Jasmine revolution brought about regime change in Tunisia and Egypt—and might create similar results in China—was proving to be the beginning of a nightmare for the leaders in Beijing.  Those leaders have not only abandoned their Maoist revolutionary perspectives, but, along with it, they have also shed the famous Mao jacket, which symbolized an era when leaders not only emerged from the masses, but also proudly harped on their proletarian background.

But the Arab awakening’s worst potential enemy is not China, which is scared of any change that rides on the shoulders of the people – even though the great people’s revolution rode into China on the shoulders of the masses.  The potential worst enemies of the Arab awakening are the Western democratic nations that had supported the tyrannical rulers for decades, and that could use the pretext of intervening in Libya or other tactics to forestall the ouster of Qaddafi and the remaining dictators from Arab countries.  A number of them took billions of dollars as “blood money” from Qaddafi and “legitimized” his regime by removing Libya from the list of nations sponsoring terrorism.  Then they started selling arms to Libya, which the crazed dictator is now using against his own people. Who could forget George W. Bush’s “poodle,” Tony Blair’s infamous handshake with Muammar Qaddafi in Libya?

Denouncing the Western response to the Arab awakening, the Guardian’s Seumas Milne was spot-on when he wrote, “The reality is that the western powers which have backed authoritarian kleptocrats across the Middle East for decades now face a loss of power in the most strategically sensitive region of the world as a result of the Arab uprisings and the prospect of representative governments. They are evidently determined to appropriate the revolutionary process wherever possible, limiting it to cosmetic change that allows continued control of the region.”

It appears that Libya is viewed by the governments in Washington, London, Paris, Rome, and elsewhere as “low hanging fruit” for “easy picking.”  It has a lot of high quality oil and low indigenous talent, which will prove to be a cheap source of sustaining the high standard of living in the West through an influx of Western expatriates.  And the best way to get an “inside track” is to oust the dictator and establish a system of sycophant rulers in Libya who will continue to do the West’s bidding.  But such an act will prove to be a death-knell for the great democratic promise of the Arab awakening.

Before anyone gets carried away about any Western participation in enforcing no-fly zones on Libya, it should be understood that one very important pre-requisite of such an action is the bombing of Libyan air defenses.  Imagine the political fallout – especially if there were any civilian loss of life – of such a move so soon after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.  The U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, was quite mindful of that reality when he said, “A no-fly zone would first require taking out Libyan air defenses, an act of war. It would be expensive and difficult to maintain. It would drain resources from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it would put the U.S. at war in a third Muslim country.”  And, I must conclude by quoting another of Milne’s observations about the Arab awakening.  He said, “The Arab revolution will be made by Arabs, or it won’t be a revolution at all.”

A cursory description of the Obama administration handling of the war in Afghanistan gives one a vivid description of how driven President Obama really is about getting out of Afghanistan. In a way that is refreshing when one recalls how obsessive George W. Bush was about invading—that is getting embroiled in—Iraq. But the stark contrast between the passions of these two presidents leads to the same outcome: America’s continued involvement in two very dangerous places, except prospects of winning in Afghanistan appear dim at best.

Regarding Iraq, we have no historical evidence of how bloody that involvement would have been before Bush invaded that country. In fact, all the so-called Iraqi experts were peppering Bush’s Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and other neoconservatives before the U.S. invasion of that country with such fictions that the Iraqi Army would walk away from the fight, that the Iraqis would be throwing rosewater and rice welcoming the invading American forces, and that they would offer them sweets. The American Army was welcomed by the Iraqis, but with bombs and IEDs and other means through which they vented their anger.

Afghanistan, on the contrary, is famously (or infamously) known as “the graveyard of empires.” Perhaps President Barack Obama clung on to that depiction. That is one reason why he wants to get out fast, before every Afghan becomes convinced that the lone superpower is only the latest of the many invaders of his homeland. But Obama had a choice of getting out of Afghanistan when he entered the White House, if not for the fact that he had already painted himself into a corner on that issue during his presidential campaign. He called Afghanistan the “right war.”

In order to “win” in Afghanistan, he has to make long-term commitments of staying there and building that country into a stable polity. He will have to think about institution-building and doing everything that would enable Afghanistan emerge as a modern nation-state. However, imagine the cost and, more to the point, the time required for doing that. At a time when the American economy is facing serious problems related to recession and high unemployment, there is no way President Obama can continue to spend big bucks as a price of staying and “winning” in Afghanistan. The American voters do not attach much value to winning there at a time when their own country faces an economic meltdown.

The left wing of the Democratic Party and the Independents, who bought Obama’s “Change” and “yes, we can” slogans of the 2008 presidential campaign, are steadily leaving his side. The Tea baggers inside the United States are screaming at the top of their lungs about Obama’s purported “socialist” policies. At a time when the American way of conducting civil debates has become a thing of the past, the lone superpower’s continued presence in Afghanistan may be acceptable for a short while, and only if it continues to win in that country.

But getting out of Afghanistan is no longer an option, even if it was one when Obama took the oath to his high office. The United States may have a slim chance of winning if it gets at least serious about implementing the counterinsurgency (CI) doctrine of General David Petraeus.

What that means is that the issue of nation-building has to be taken up by the U.S. military in a serious way. However, President Obama is on the record not only for his opposition for the nation-building option, but also about not staying there long. He has already told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, according to Bob Woodward’s latest book, Obama’s Wars, “I’m not doing 10 years, I’m not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars.”

Reading about the internal squabbling and name-calling from the very start of the Obama administration in Woodward’s book, I get the notion that America’s campaign in Afghanistan has been doomed from the very first day of the Obama watch. If, as Woodward claims, Obama doubted (if not truly opposed) the surge strategy for Afghanistan from the very beginning, how could he remain faithful to for a long duration? Indeed, the narrative makes obvious President’s deep skepticism of it.

As Woodward reports, President Obama privately encouraged Biden to ask hard questions in his opposition to the surge strategy so that he (Obama) did not lose the whole Democratic party. Come to think of it, that explanation also clarifies why Biden has been so forceful in promoting the counterterrorism (CT) strategy in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and why he got into conflict with the former Commanding of the ISAF General McChrystal in such a major way. Even president’s aides doubt that Obama’s strategy would work, yet they are still in the White House pretending to implement it.

Biden’s contempt toward Obama’s Special Envoy to Pakistan-Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, was a surprising element. Holbrook was appointed for that job as a concession to Hillary Clinton. He was an original supporter of Hillary’s presidential campaign and would have been the Secretary of State, if she were to win the election. But leaving Holbrooke in his current job is also a grave error. He does not get along with the Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is described as “manic depressive” in Woodward’s book. He was despised by McChrystal and his top aides. Petraeus does not seem to care much for him, but is too polished to show his contempt as McChrystal did.

The civil-military tensions during the Obama administration reminds one of the situation that prevailed during the administration of President Bill Clinton. Obama, like Clinton, has no military experience. However, that lack of military experience is not a problem, Obama’s sustained skepticism of the earnestness of military advice is. George W. Bush did not have much military experience to speak of, but he paid inordinate attention to the “professional” aspects of the advice of the top military brass. Obama certainly does not share that trait with his predecessor.

The most surprising part of Woodward’s book is the discussion of tensions between Obama and General David Petraeus. The latter is implementing his own CI strategy, but at the same time he is also working on the time-related constraints imposed by the president. Petraeus is covering his back by stating that he is not promising victory in Afghanistan under those circumstances. He reportedly told Woodward, “You have to recognize also that I don’t think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. It’s a little bit like Iraq, actually. . . . Yes, there has been enormous progress in Iraq. But there are still horrific attacks in Iraq, and you have to stay vigilant. You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we’re in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids’ lives.” However, President Obama and his White House advisors remain skeptical of it.

Every American president who was involved in a major foreign war or a crisis believed in a myth, which to his mind was the ultimate truth, and which was also driving his war. President Lyndon B. Johnson was driven by the myth of the “falling dominos”—whereby the fall of South Vietnam would have resulted in the fall to communism of neighboring states. President Richard M. Nixon’s first myth was “peace with honor,” whereby he was going to withdraw American troops from South Vietnam on his terms. Then he created another myth of “winning” over North Vietnam by implementing what he called “Vietnamization” of the Vietnam War. According to that myth, his administration was to rely on building the fighting capabilities of South Vietnamese forces. (I wonder how much that factoid reminds one of America’s current priorities of training the Afghan military.)

George W. Bush went beyond creating a myth to conjuring up a fairytale before invading Iraq. According to that legend Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons, which he was ready to lob on the United States and create mushroom clouds.

Barack Obama’s myth is the “term sheet” that, as Woodward tells us, he has created. It spells out the parameters of America’s involvement in Afghanistan. But his most dangerous myth is what he calls “The cancer is in Pakistan.” Consequently, he is determined to save Afghanistan from the spread of that cancer. It is a dangerous myth because Obama has been using that myth to implement Biden’s preference for counterterrorism approach toward Pakistan.

Pakistan has a problem with the Islamists. That problem has a solution. It should be tackled by implementing a multi-dimensional program of economic development, institutional building, reforming educational curricula, reestablishing effective and corruption-free police forces, and a number of other measures. Applying the hubristic title of “cancer” and then using drones to kill some extremists and a lot of innocent civilians is a borderline insane approach to resolving the extremism-related problems of Pakistan.

If CT were to have any credence as a warfighting strategy, then the United States would have long won in Iraq. As it turned out that even the semblance of “victory” in Iraq was created through Petraues’ counterinsurgency strategy, of which nation-building (albeit of a limited proportion) is a crucial part. But Obama has categorically ruled out nation-building in Afghanistan. Yet, as Woodward tells us, General Petraeus is still implementing his counterinsurgency strategy in that country, a strategy that has few, if any, supporters in Obama’s White House.

What emerges from the preceding analysis is that the United States is only pretending to win the war in Afghanistan by implementing a strategy which has few supporters, except for Petraeus. Even he knows how little support that strategy holds within the domestic political arena of the United States. So, Petraeus too is pretending to be presiding over a strategy that would make Afghanistan a safe enough place. He is no longer touting the message of victory, which he did in Iraq under Bush.

As major actors within the Obama administration continue to push their respective preferred agenda, the ultimate myth that is driving Obama’s War in Afghanistan is that the United States, somehow, would be victorious and would get out within a year or so. In the meantime, the Taliban are getting increasingly convinced that their victory is edging closer by the hour.

Generals conduct wars by using good judgment, which also affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of young men and women. They are not allowed the luxury of demonstrating bad judgment related to war. In the final analysis, McChrystal was fired for demonstrating bad judgment.

The world of Special Operations is full of darkness, black operations that are bloody and gory. “Black operators” – as individuals of special operations are often referred to – are not trained to be diplomats, even though members of their top ranks regularly deal with top foreign officials. It should be noted, however, that Special Forces in general are a bit more familiar with foreign cultures than their counterparts in the conventional forces, but that slight knowledge does not exactly make them world-class diplomats. Still, in the realm of diplomacy, McChrystal did quite well. When President Obama, his ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, and his Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, were on the record for disagreeing or even manifesting contempt for President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, McChrystal was reported to have gotten along with him quite well. That was also why Karzai expressed deep sorrow for McChrystal’s firing.

In reality, General Stanley McChrystal had two problems from the very beginning of his tenure as Commander of the international security forces (ISAF). He did not know what to say and how to say it without offending his civilian masters in Washington. He was almost derisive toward Vice President Biden in expressing his disagreement over the overall strategy of the Afghan war when he appeared at a public meeting at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London in October 2009. Biden was promoting a counterterrorism approach to the war in Afghanistan, which would have emphasized the use of force, while McChrystal was championing the counterinsurgency (COIN) approach – a multi-dimensional approach. That disagreement should not have been publicly expressed by a military officer, and in a foreign country to boot.

Even while President Obama was considering McChrystal’s original request for 40,000 troops in Afghanistan right after he entered the White House, McChrystal, through his frequent public remarks, was appearing to be putting pressure on the president. Someone should have taken him out to the woodshed for that attitude.

McChrystal’s second problem was that the war in Afghanistan is not going well. His tactical emphasis on not using air strikes, not shooting at suspected insurgents, or not allowing American troops to enter a house from where insurgent fire was suspected to have originated were causing a lot of disgruntlement among U.S. forces. In a military that emphasizes minimal casualties, such a daredevil approach was bound to make a lot of foot soldiers very unhappy. But these were also important characteristics of the COIN doctrine that McChrystal was emphasizing.

To top it all, the military operations in Marja of last February had become a “bleeding ulcer,” to quote General McChrystal’s description of it. Consequently, operations in Kandahar were being postponed. The fact that Eikenberry and Karzai have a lot of bad blood between them, and the fact that Eikenberry and McChrystal did not get along, made effective conduct of operations that much more difficult.

McChrystal would have still survived it all, if not for that Rolling Stone interview, which turned out to be an unwitting Kamikaze act of a Special Forces warrior. Through that interview, he came across as larger than anything or anyone who represented the U.S. side, at least in his own mind and in the perception of his minions. He and his subordinates were blatantly offending the civilian authority – the cornerstone of the U.S. system of government. They forgot that they were representing the United States and not some banana republic. McChrystal might not have meant for himself or his aides to have come across that arrogantly, but that was how they were perceived in Washington. After that low level demonstration of bad judgment, the career of the “runaway” general had to be terminated.

Now, to the most important question related to Afghanistan. Is the war in that country more or less winnable without McChrystal? The short answer is that it does not matter. At least this point in the history of that country, it is as much impossible to create an effective central government as it was anytime before. The COIN, even if it were to emerge as an effective way of minimizing violence in Afghanistan, is still far short of resolving the most ancient and obdurate conflicts in that country. In that sense, the war in Afghanistan remains quite “unwinnable” for the United States.

First and foremost, it unwittingly underscores the fact that most of the world of Islam is on fire. Just look at the trans-Sahel region and the Horn of Africa. To the east of that continent, the Arabian Peninsula has been experiencing increased amounts of turbulence in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Across the Persian Gulf, Iran does not look too stable; its two neighboring states, Pakistan and Afghanistan, are where the United States is fighting its war against religious extremism. That phrase is President Barack Obama’s euphemism for George W. Bush’s GWOT.

If you continue travelling east of Afghanistan to Central Asia, it appears serene. But don’t be fooled by that palpable serenity, and certainly don’t tell the Chinese that their neighboring states are likely to remain stable. Leaders in Beijing (with the full cooperation of the brutal regimes in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) are being proactive in suppressing the Muslim Uighurs, who are yearning to secede from China in its Western province of Xinjiang. Continued turbulence in the Muslim republics of the Russian Federation is also making the Chinese leader very nervous.

The second aspect of the current FP issue that I noted (but remained totally unimpressed about) is what type of strategy the US government should use in its ongoing wars in Muslim lands. The Surge strategy, which has been given credit for stabilizing Iraq (even though that credit remains only partially correct), is being applied in Afghanistan. Edward Luttwak, a U.S. military strategist and historian, argues for the use of strategic bombing in Afghanistan as the best way to deal with the Taliban. He wants the United States to arm the Afghan anti-Taliban militias to the teeth, and to let them do the fighting and dying instead of U.S. soldiers. That worked in the 1980s against the Soviet Union because it was occupying Afghanistan. However, the United States is envisaged now by the Afghans as the occupying force. So, arming the Afghans to the teeth might also result in increased U.S. deaths if or when they were to turn their guns against their American masters. He has completely glossed over that fact. Regarding Luttwak’s suggestion of the use of strategic bombing, I am amazed at how callous some Western strategic thinkers remain about the insignificance of the so-called huge collateral damage that will surely stem from that measure in any part of Afghanistan. While advocating strategic bombing, he has nothing to say whether the US should continue to use the Surge strategy or completely abandon it. Obviously, arming the anti-Taliban Afghan will defeat the very rationale of General Stanley McChrystal’s Surge strategy. Bad suggestion, Ed! My advice to you is that you need to clean your foggy strategic lenses!

The mega-conflict of the 21st Century – how to deal with Islamist insurgency and how to “cure” the failing and failed Muslim states – defies any consensus on the modalities of a comprehensive solution. In the absence of that consensus, the use of “kinetic” force remains the sole tactic to fight it. However, relying on this tactic alone will not guarantee any victory for the United States.

There was President Abraham Lincoln, who went to war to save the American union.  The northern states won that war, he is known as the savior of the republic, and the world has had a dexterous superpower.  Then there was Sir Winston Churchill.  His greatest claim to fame might have been his leadership during the World War II.  But, in my view, his even greatest claim to fame is that he knew how to find a niche for his tiny country, which was fast becoming a declining power toward the end of the Second Great War.  That niche was his decision to emerge as the vital ally of the United States.  In that capacity, the United Kingdom has played more of a crucial role during the Cold War than France or any other European power.

The world will not forget a failed American president, Lyndon Johnson, because he did not know when to decelerate his country’s commitment to the war in Vietnam.  He was not served well by a brilliant Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, who was not persuasive enough to talk his boss into getting out of Vietnam, but decided to write a book publicizing his doubts in the 1990s.  President George W. Bush will go down in history as another failed president because he chose to get his country embroiled in a war of choice in Iraq.  His Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, saw eye-to-eye with his boss.  However, when the American people had enough of the Iraqi quagmire, Rumsfeld became Mr. Dispensable and Bush dumped him.  His successor was Robert Gates, who is now serving President Obama in the same capacity.  However,  Gates has been emerging as Mr. Indispensable by serving his boss quite well, at least for now.

President Obama entered the White House as a sort of a protest candidate regarding the war in Iraq, but he kept making a case for the Afghan war as the right kind of war.  When he became president, he had a choice of either talking himself out of committing American troops or bring about further escalation of troops, but on the basis of ample reflection, consultation, and thoughtfulness.  He is doing all that.  However, the neoconservatives (neocons) of America, whose darling, Senator John McCain, lost the election against Obama and McCain himself are on the sideline doing all the drumbeating for heightened commitment of troops in Afghanistan.  Consequently, Obama has become a double hostage of his own rhetoric related to Afghanistan during the presidential campaign and now that of pressure from American conservatives.

General Stanley McChrystal and General David Petraeus are also advocating increased engagement of American forces, because that was regarded as one of the chief reasons why the Surge strategy resulted in stabilizing Iraq.   

What is important now is that a General with a proven record of success in the new counterinsurgency doctrine (McChrystal) is arguing to implement the same doctrine in Afghanistan.  And he has the support of one of the original authors of that doctrine (Petraeus).  On this point, President Obama’s lack of experience in foreign policy and his total lack of knowledge and experience in military matters are making him somewhat wobbly-minded about coming out with the kind of strategy that he really wishes to implement in Afghanistan.   On this test of leadership, he is becoming increasingly pragmatic and appears to be seeking the support of his Secretary of Defense Gates.  Robert Gates does not belong to the neocon camp, but is highly respected in the conservative circles of the Republican Party as well as in the military, whose majority usually votes for that party.

Secretary Gates has shown a lot of class by repudiating McChrystal (albeit quite indirectly) for being bluntly discussing the modalities of his recommendations to President during his recent appearance at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS).  Gates has wisely stated that whatever advice the top advisors have to offer to the President, they should do that “privately” (italics added). At the same time he seemed to be agreeing with McChrystal’s advice of raising the troop level. In this manner, Gates is reminding the military of the “rules of engagement” related to the President, while signaling to the President that he needs to give a hard consideration to McChrystal’s advice, while overlooking his brusque mannerism during his appearance at the IISS.

That type of sagacity is refreshing when one compares the style and substance of Gates’ leadership as Secretary of Defense with those of Rumsfeld.  What is even more important is that his ponderous operating style seems to complement that of President Obama.  There is no guarantee that Obama will succeed in implementing whatever strategy he is developing right now.  What is guaranteed is that he is doing his level best to be inclusive in his style of decisionmaking.  He is consulting with a slew of legislators of both parties and other experts.  The press coverage of free-wheeling debates governing the making of his strategy on Afghanistan reminds one of the decisionmaking style of President John Kennedy.  And Robert Gates is an important player in that process.

The most important aspect of Gates’ indispensability to President Obama is that he is not in the camp of those who are promoting a counterterrorism approach to Afghanistan (using high-tech platforms or Special Forces to eradicate the terrorists).  What he really seems to favoring is that the United States should stay engaged in Afghanistan.   

What is missing from all these metaphors and depictions is what should be our strategy in Afghanistan.  If the United States is committed to remain in Afghanistan for the next twenty years, we need to add more troops.  Even as we do that, our focus ought to be nation-building, not the in the sense of how this phrase is used among the U.S. Special Forces.  What I mean by nation-building is a massive process of institution building for the purpose of establishing democracy in Afghanistan, along with a huge campaign against counter-drug operations, crop substitution, educational reforms, a colossal campaign of building civilian infrastructures, etc.  What I have in mind as a suggestion for the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan has no precedent (no, not even Japan or West Germany, for they were advanced polities before the war, while Afghanistan has never been one).  That is the only way of winning in Afghanistan.

What most Western observers are missing when they offer their expert advice regarding Afghanistan is an absence of a strong sense of history and an understanding of the culture of that country.  Stewart is an exception to that observation.  The decision to add more troops in Afghanistan cannot be made purely by couching it in the requirements of American domestic politics, and by viewing it from the perspective of what is appropriate and acceptable inside the United States.  I say that because, as more troops are inserted in Afghanistan, that will be seen as an evidence of commitment by outsiders, but not necessarily by the Afghans.  They need more persuading than mere escalation troops for now.  The abruptness by which the United States left Afghanistan after the redeployment of the Soviet troops in 1989 leaves them no reason to believe that we are likely to stay there.  This time there is no much difference.  All they have to do is to watch the current debate regarding Afghanistan inside the United States.

Mind you, I am not questioning the legitimacy of these debates.  They are quite genuine in the sense that, before more U.S. young men and women are sent there and before more money is invested, we need to debate the nature of our commitment.  However, that is precisely why the Afghans are skeptical that we mean to stay there for a long while this time.   In fact, my gut feeling is that we have no intention of making a long-term commitment to that tormented country.  I am especially flabbergasted by suggestions-even Vice President Joe Biden is part of this-that we need to wage counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan.  That is an entirely silly notion that was first proposed by the Conservative Columnist George Will, and it is popular among some senior military officials.

What President Obama must do, first and foremost, is to elucidate his strategy and then commit this country’s resources accordingly.  If General McChrystal is asking for 40,000 troops (or whatever other numbers that are being floated), we need to look at the strategy first.  Obama’s proclamation of strategy will tell the Afghans and the Taliban how long we intend to stay.  No other rhetorical assurances are required.  So, when Mr. Obama announces his decision to the American public and the world,  that will be the ultimate litmus test of the earnestness of America’s commitment.  Otherwise, he should listen to his own advice when he said about Bush’s war in Iraq: “Once we had driven the bus into the ditch, there were only so many ways we could get out.  The question is, who’s making the decision initially to drive the bus into the ditch?”

If we have no intention of making a long-term commitment for building Afghanistan into a stable polity, we need not increase the level of our troops.  Obama should think about listening to his own advice of not driving the country into a ditch or off a cliff.