The killing of Usama Bin Laden may be defined as a “victory,” in the sense that it culminated a process that, for almost eleven years and expending millions of dollars without finding him, ended in success.  However, his death has nothing to do with achieving victory in Afghanistan or even with America’s more than a decade-long “war on terrorism.”  In fact, if killing terrorists was a way to win that “war,” it should have either been over by now or should have become at least significantly
diminished.  Just look at the number of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.  There are no credible figures, but it could be safely put in millions of people dead.  That includes countless insurgents and terrorists.  The chief irony in the human loss of life in Iraq is that it might not emerge as a nation of properly fed (nutrition-wise) and adequately educated persons, at least for the next ten or more years. That very fact leaves that country a potential haven for terrorism.  Afghanistan may best be described as a “hell hole” for a nation.  It has experienced nothing but death and destruction since 1979.  Before the Soviet invasion that year, Afghanistan had a weak central government.  Ever since then, it has experienced nothing but chaos.

It was either America’s globally recognized hubris or its equally renowned naiveté that it thinks it can, by waging a war, transform Afghanistan into a stable democracy.  Obama entered into office criticizing his predecessor’s “wrong war” in Iraq.  That sense of moral correctness regarding Iraq had an enemy: an equally powerful sense of self-assuredness that the “right” war ought to be waged in Afghanistan no matter the cost.  However, the trouble with that type of self-assuredness is that it is full of blind spots.  One such blind spot is forcing Obama to conduct that war, which is causing America ten billion dollars a month. When Diane Sawyer of ABC news raised that point with Robert Gates and General David Petraeus in a recent joint interview, Gates’ answer was, “Yes but what’s the cost of failure?”

Even though the presidential election is about a year and a half away, one wonders when President Obama will see the cause-effect relationship in the huge budget deficits and America’s continuing war in Afghanistan.  Right now, the U.S. economy is in a slump and the unemployment figure is hovering around 9.1 percent.  However, he is betting on an escalated pace of economic activity and an increased rate of employment toward the end of this year.  That may be one reason why he does not seem to be interested in carrying out a major troop withdrawal from Iraq, or doing the same in Afghanistan.

However, to say that we are accomplishing a “big chunk” of our strategic objectives in Afghanistan might not be a wise move on his part, because it is just not true.  The fact that General David Petraeus has abandoned his own counterinsurgency (CI) doctrine in favor of the counterterrorism (CT) approach advocated by Vice President Joe Biden (which is also preferred by President Obama) does not bode well for the United States or Afghanistan. The question of the week or month is what specific approach Petraeus’ successor, General John Allen, will adopt.  Is he going to return to General Stanley McChrystal’s purist commitment to CI, or will he continue to use Petraeus’ CT approach?  If he chooses the latter, then we can expect more death and destruction instead of the evolution of a stable Afghanistan, since the CT version has no room for the nation-building aspects (“clear, hold, build”) of Petraeus’ original CI doctrine.

A few weeks ago, the United States was reported to be targeting the Taliban’s Supreme Leader, Mullah Omar.  In fact, there was
a rumor that he was killed, which the Taliban vehemently denied.  Then, in the last week or so, we heard that the United States is trying to open a dialogue with him for the purpose of reaching some sort of political settlement.  President Hamid Karzai has gone on record about wanting to negotiate with him for quite awhile, with the U.S. government not showing much interest in the issue until recently.

Regarding the Afghanistan war, the Obama administration and the Afghan government are at a critical moment.  There will be a new Secretary of Defense within a matter of weeks, Leon Panetta, and a new Commander of the ISAF forces, General John Allen.  Thus, we will have to wait and see what significant changes in the warfighting strategy will take place under their collective leadership.  Panetta as the head of the CIA was crucial in promoting the CT version of the U.S. strategy in Pakistan and in Afghanistan.  With him as the new Secretary of Defense, one wonders whether there will be a continuation of emphasis on CT or a departure to CI.

The U.S.-Pakistan ties appear uncertain as ever.  As much as Obama’s South Asia advisors remain exasperated about the “duplicity” on the part of the Pakistani government, the latter is also angry with the Obama administration for remaining the most untrustworthy counterpart (the phrase ‘partners’ or ‘allies’ has long outlived its usefulness, when viewed both from Washington and Islamabad).

In view of this high degree of uncertainty, any discussion of victory on the part of the U.S. president is purely Orwellian in the sense that ‘victory means what only Obama wants it to be.  Realities on the ground have nothing to do with that definition.’
That type of attitude is least likely to help President Obama in his attempt to win supporters, even with his own party members in the U.S. Congress.

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.

Every new president’s approach to major unresolved issues is entirely different from those of his immediate predecessor, simply because the predecessor’s approach is regarded as inept or even wrong-headed. So, the successor proceeds to ‘reinvent the wheel’ on those issues by approaching it entirely differently. Since Barack Obama entered office criticizing Bush’s involvement in and his handling of the Iraq war, his own war – the one in Afghanistan – was going to have his ‘superior’ mark on it.

Bush invaded Iraq on the pretext of freeing the regime of Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction, which did not even exist. There were no plans to create a viable post-conflict government in Iraq, a reality that is largely responsible for immersing that country in a near-civil war situation.

Obama was to develop his rationale of enhancing his country’s involvement in Afghanistan by developing a strategy and even by establishing an “exit date.” He read in Gordon Goldstein’s Lessons in Disaster of the Vietnamese imbroglio, in order to create a blueprint of how to avoid future disasters in Afghanistan; he put together an AfPak strategy before inserting more troops into Afghanistan; and held numerous brainstorming sessions with his own team of the “best and the brightest” to avoid potential political landmines and blinders related to conflict in that country. He insisted on holding clean elections in Afghanistan, and maintained a highly palpable ambivalence toward the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, whose reelection was allegedly based on a lot of fraudulent practices, including stuffing of ballot boxes. The frequent teleconferencing between the White House and Karzai’s presidential palace during the Bush administration instantly disappeared when Obama entered the White House. Karzai was left with no doubt that the new administration was symbolically holding its nose while dealing with him. News dispatches on the corrupt practices of the Karzai government became regular items.

The U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, dispatched two cables to the White House in November 2009, which were promptly leaked to the press, about Karzai not being an adequate strategic partner. In those cables, Eikenberry also opposed further increases in American troops in Afghanistan. There were reports that Richard Holbrook, Obama’s Special Envoy to South Asia, did not get along with Karzai. Another U.S. official, Peter Galbraith, even went to extent of stating that Karzai is unbalanced and an opium addict.

The general public’s manifestations of an overall condescending and disdainful attitude toward Hamid Karzai by prominent U.S. officials created an intense response from the Afghan president. He turned the tables on the Obama administration by accusing the “West” – which was his euphemism for the Obama administration – for conducting a fraudulent election. He insisted on being treated as an elected head of a sovereign state. Karzai did not take kindly to reports that U.S. forces were threatening to put his half-brother, Wali Karzai, on the military’s “Joint Prioritized Engagement List,” a euphemism for “kill or capture” list. Wali Karzai has been regularly mentioned as one of the chief symptoms of the problems of corruption and nepotism afflicted on his brother’s administration. The most publicized anger incident of Hamid Karzai toward the United States was when he threatened to join the Taliban, a statement that stunned the Obama administration.

Another prominent U.S. official in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has an entirely different approach toward Karzai. McChrystal, Commander of the NATO forces, not only treated the Afghan president with abundant respect, but worked with him closely, an attitude that caused ample friction between him and Eikenberry. McChrystal is totally immersed in implementing the American military’s COIN doctrine. That doctrine gives primacy to politics – hence on cooperating with the top political representative of that country, Hamid Karzai – and to winning the hearts and minds of the populace, not merely through the use of rhetorical hyperbolas, but through implementing nation-building. In this approach, gaining the support of the local civilian authorities and the Afghan populace is so intricate and pursued so single-mindedly that its practitioners (McChrystal and his staff) strongly disagreed with those who frequently insisted on inserting priorities decided in Washington (Ambassador Eikenberry, Holbrook, and their staffs).

In this constant tug-and-pull between McChrystal’s ‘nativist’ and Eikenberry’s Washington-centric approaches, President Obama – without publicly saying so – has thus far sided with Eikenberry. This type of bickering and Washington’s messy way of managing its occupation of Afghanistan – which also happened in the case of Vietnam and Iraq – was music to the ears of the Taliban and al-Qaida. That reality also perfectly suited their argument that Karzai is merely a puppet, and that Afghanistan is an occupied country, which needs to be liberated.

However, before these disagreements between Karzai and U.S. officials became irresolvable, a brazen sense of realism seems to be dawning in Washington recently. President Obama is reported to have instructed that Karzai should be treated with “more respect” by his national security team, and that he should be regarded as a “partner,” which means as a legitimate chief executive of Afghanistan.

Obama knows that his administration would sink or swim with Karzai in the driver’s seat in Afghanistan. Consequently, his treatment of Karzai during his upcoming Washington trip will be warmer and more respectful, which is a marked departure from the American president’s publicized surprise trip to Afghanistan in May 2010 during which he is reportedly lectured Karzai to clean up his government. Needless to say, no other action of the U.S. government underscored the potency of the Taliban propaganda regarding the puppet nature of the Karzai government more than the international media’s report on Obama’s trip.

The United States almost lost in Iraq by not remembering an important lesson of the Vietnam quagmire, which states that foreign wars are not won by substantially relying on military power. Rather, they are won through a healthy comprehension of the intricate role of politics, and then incorporating political variables into developing a winning comprehensive strategy.

Even though America has not yet fully secured Iraq, the concept of giving primacy to politics in that country – of which the COIN-related Surge strategy was a good example – has emerged as an approach that should be rigorously emulated in Afghanistan. When or if victory comes to the American forces in Afghanistan, McChrystal’s notion of working closely with Karzai (while privately emphasizing good governance and working unstintingly to develop policies to enhance it) is likely to play a crucial role. In the final analysis, it is only through establishing the legitimacy of his government, and by adopting a slew of policies aimed at enhancement of good governance that Hamid Karzai will win against the Taliban-al-Qaida nexus in Afghanistan.

Many years ago, I interviewed the grand old man of India’s foreign policy, Mr. K. Subrahmanyam. He observed how shrewd Pakistan has been in conducting its foreign policy within the parameters of realpolitik. His explanation for that was that the rulers of that country envisioned themselves as heirs of the great Mughal dynasty. In that capacity, they feel very much at home with the notion of being in the big league of nations. I do not necessarily agree with that observation; but the old guy had a point. Pakistan has never accepted the fact that, as a middle power, it belongs to a different league than India, which definitely belongs to the great power league.

In the past few months, the Pakistani ruling elite has been showing its deftness when it persuaded the participants of the London conference on Afghanistan in January 2010 that a dialogue aimed at bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table should be initiated. India, on the contrary, stuck to the simplistic logic that all Taliban are bad guys and should be excluded from any attempts to bring them back to the negotiating table.

India also made the mistake of backing Abdullah Abdullah for the presidency against Hamid Karzai in the last presidential election. Abdullah is a Tajik; and in that capacity, he represents a minority of the Afghan population. My own sense is that India’s decision to support Abdullah against Karzai was the result of hubris stemming from its strategic partnership with the United States. The best option for India was to remain on the sideline and watch in silence, especially because Karzai has been quite receptive (some say enthusiastic) to India’s increased diplomatic presence in his country.

In any case, Hamid Karzai got even by supporting the Pakistani argument about negotiating with the Taliban. Another point that is ignored by many is that negotiating with the Taliban is very much in harmony with General Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine, which is highly political in its emphasis in Afghanistan. Negotiating with the Taliban is exactly what Pakistan has proposed.

The third point that has been ignored by most analysts is the fact the General Ashfaq Kayani of Pakistan is proving to be a hell of a lot smarter than his predecessor, General Pervez Musharraf, in his dealings with the United States. Kayani is earnestly attempting to gain the upper hand over, if not outrightly defeating, the Tehrik-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP). The entire DoD leadership is convinced of that reality and is eager to reward Pakistan.

The preceding analysis is not meant to suggest that Pakistan is totally out of the woods. The United States is not likely to assign it anytime soon the important status that India currently enjoys as America’s strategic partner.

What this means, however, is that the United States is willing to talk “high politics” with Pakistan, including a possible civil nuclear deal, which is highly coveted by Pakistan. That indeed is a major breakthrough. Once this type of a dialogue ensues, there is no telling where it will end. Pakistan is hoping that it will result in its attainment of the highly cherished status of a strategic partner.

From Pakistan’s point of view, the Kayani approach carries enormous payoffs. To start with, it might be the beginning of an era when Pakistan makes a clear break from the Islamists of al-Qaida inclination, who wish to take that country back to the 7th Century. Secondly, it might be the beginning of a time when the FATA and the NWFP areas are administered by the Pakistani government, thereby bringing an end to making them safe places for al-Qaida and its ilk. Thirdly, Pakistan might use this policy to extract a grand bargain from Washington, whereby it can gain access to cutting-edge civilian and defense technology that it direly needs to rebuild itself as a modern nation.

If Subrahmanyam’s observation about Pakistan’s deftness regarding realpolitik is correct, we may be witnessing the beginning of a new tug-and-pull between South Asia’s two major antagonists. And the Obama administration is about to learn the topsy-turvy nature of South Asian power games.

Galbraith and Holbrooke belong to the category of American officials who run around thinking that they know what is best for South Asia and the Middle East. Actually, Holbrooke draws his fame from the Dayton Accord that was concluded under his leadership during the administration of President Bill Clinton. But he was installed in the American lobbies of power and influence as one of the protégés of Ambassador Averell Harriman way back in days of the U.S. entanglement and “political engineering” in South Vietnam. So, he is an old hand at the United States’ aborted attempts at rebuilding “broken” nations. In his current post, Holbrooke is reported to be regularly feuding with Hamid Karzai. There is no doubt that Karzai is presiding over a highly inept government. But there is nothing new about that. What is different is that he is an Afghan politician whose star is declining since George W. Bush departed the White House.

Peter Galbraith has a similar career of serving as an ambassador in Croatia and East Timor. He fancies himself an expert on Kurdish problems and has presented a decidedly wrong-headed proposal for an independent Kurdistan. He “also came under scrutiny recently for his stake in an oil field in the Kurdish region of Iraq.”

The corrupt nature of the Karzai government has been a very well-known factor. In fact, corruption remains one of the scourges of all South Asian countries. What should be kept in mind is that a process has been installed in Afghanistan to establish democracy, and its uninterrupted evolution is most vital so that it could eradicate corruption, along with numerous other social ills. The Taliban are attempting to overthrow Karzai through murder and mayhem. How can one explain Galbraith’s suggestion or plan for replacing Karzai through an extra-constitutional, if not an outright unconstitutional, process. In fact, the New York Times dispatch on the subject reports the Mr. Kai Eide told Galbraith that his “plan was ‘unconstitutional, it represented interference of the worst sort, and if pursued it would provoke not only a strong international reaction’ but also civil insurrection.”

It appears that Holbrooke and Galbraith have their own preferred candidates who should replace Karzai. It has been reported that unnamed American officials favor Ashraf Ghani, a former Interior Minister, or Ali A. Jalali. Both of them are fine men, but neither of them was a choice of the Afghan people.

Galbraith has an established record of coming up with his hairbrained schemes, as he did in the case of the Kurdish issue by advocating for an independent Kurdistan. Thereby, he demonstrated how little he really understands the history or politics of that area about which he claims expertise.

Afghanistan has a constitutional process in place. If it were to eventually emerge as a stable democracy, it has to fully implement that process uninterruptedly and on a prolonged basis. Hamid Karzai is an elected president. If his election was an outcome of a corrupt process, then that process has to be corrected next time. If he continues to prove himself as an incompetent leader, as he has in the past, a constitutional means has to be found to replace him. His removal should not be carried out on the whims and fancies of a few self-styled “smart” white men who are running around pretending to be experts on that country. In reality, these “experts” are suffering from the age-old ailment of the colonial era when their forbearers used to think that only they know what is good for brown and black people.

All historical eras and events are associated with some slogan or idea.  Rightly or wrongly, they serve as a clarion call for nations either to accept or to reject them, and then use them as guideposts for their policies.  The First World War’s moniker was “a war to end all wars,” and that phrase became a cause célèbre for its supporters as a rationale for sacrifices.  The Second World War was depicted as “the last good war,” not because any war is good, but because it “was a war that had to be fought and won.”   The phrase “containment” [of communism] remained a major driving force for the Cold War in the United States as well as in the so-called “free world.”

When the United States was attacked by a number of Middle Eastern terrorists on September 11, 2001, the phrase “post-9/11 era” was frequently used by the analysts all over the world, especially to describe its gruesome side.  It was more than a casual phrase.  It was the beginning of new but sinister way of thinking about how to deal with global terrorism and how the United States would go about determining which countries are on its side and which have a soft spot for terrorists.  The Bush administration declared a “war” against it, and the world had to become familiar with another phrase, the “global war on terrorism” or GWOT. 

That phrase itself became a lightning rod for controversy in Europe and the rest of the world.  The critics asked how the lone superpower could declare a war against an action and expect to become a winner.  Another group of critics asked how the United States could expect to win against “global terrorism” by applying only its military muscle. 

The United States, wittingly or unwittingly, treated “global terrorism” as a monolithic entity along the same flawed lines whereby “international communism” was depicted in the Cold War years as a “monolithic” force that could be tackled and defeated.  It was only in the late 1950s—during the second administration of President Dwight Eisenhower—and later on that the United States moved away from that silly notion of monolithism in portraying communism. 

The concept the “clash of civilizations” became divisive in the early 1990s when it was coined by Samuel Huntington.  In that decade, the debate on the utility of that concept largely involved only American, and a few Asian and European, intellectuals who labeled it contentious and partially correct in explaining the emerging conflict after the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991.  American strategic thinkers, after getting so used to dealing with the mega-conflict of the Cold War years, thought that a conflict along the same magnitude would become the dominant basis of a division of nation-states in several camps.  So the concept “civilizational conflict”—which Huntington borrowed from the writings of Phillip Hitti and Bernard Lewis—appeared as a logical way of thinking “big” about the post-Cold war era.

Usama Bin Laden’s public musings between the late 1990s and 2001 about declaring a “Jihad” against the U.S. and the West became the basis for “legitimizing” and globalizing Huntington’s proposition related to Islam and Christianity.  However, once the United States was attacked by Muslim terrorists, who, as it was later known, were carrying out a plot that was personally blessed by Bin Laden himself, no doubts were left in the minds of American and Western strategic thinkers about how “prescient” Huntington really was all along. 

In Muslim countries, the clash of civilizations also caught on as an idea legitimizing the “fact” that the United States had declared a war against Islam.  President George W. Bush’s uninformed use of the phrase “crusade,” was treated as “evidence” of that “fact” in the world of Islam.

However, it was Bush’s decision to invade Iraq soon after he invaded Afghanistan that became the chief basis for the “credibility” to the proposition in the world of Islam that the leitmotif for the U.S. presence in Muslim countries was to enslave them and change the essence of Islam into something that is very much akin to Christianity. 

Needless to say, despite his one-time use of the unfortunate phrase “crusade,” Bush reiterated that America had no fight against Islam and that America respects Islam.  But that country’s continued presence in Afghanistan and Iraq was speaking louder than Bush’s words, and the lone superpower was envisioned as an “enemy” of Islam.  As the table from the Pew Research Center shows, a majority of people in a number of Muslim countries continued to envision the United States as a military threat.

President Obama’s overtures toward the world of Islam, indeed, are welcoming.  However, what is needed is substantive policy change.  His decision to create a distance between President Hamid Karzai’s government and the U.S. is a positive development.  However, one has to wait and see how that transformation is reflected in other policy measures that his administration intends to bring about in Afghanistan. 

President Obama’s overall approach to “PafAf” is also comprehensive and promising.  However, one has to wait and see how the “surge” of troops in Afghanistan affects that country’s stability.  America’s continued use of drones to carry out attacks in the Pak-Afghan border areas is weakening the support of the Zardari government.  But, given the fact that such attacks have also resulted in a few deaths of al-Qaida and Taliban groups, there is little doubt that such attacks will continue.  Despite having a comprehensive approach to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the United States appears confused about what other modalities it ought to develop in its policies to persuade its NATO allies that Afghanistan will be stabilized in the near future. 

In the absence of a clear-cut indication of America’s success in stabilization of Pakistan and Afghanistan, the notion of the clash of civilizations—even though it has lost a substantial aspect of its popularity in South Asia and in other Muslim countries—is likely to be revived.  Such a happenstance is likely to be one of the greatest challenges to President Obama’s well-meaning new approach to the world of Islam.  He has initiated his battle for slaying the beast of the clash of civilizations.  For now, at least, his administration appears to be waging an uphill battle.