AfPak: An(other) Overkill Please, Mr. President

By MICHAEL S. SMITH II

"... And so long as Democrats continue the tragic Bush-Cheney habit of wedding themselves to internal political timetables ... it's hard to see how any interested great power would trust our strategically myopic leadership."

Thomas P.M. Barnett"The New Rules: In Afghanistan, It's About More Than Just the U.S." World Politics Review, 14 September 2009 *

Last week, both Sen. John McCain (R, A.Z.) and Sen. Carl Levin (D, M.I.) separately informed the public they expect Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal to request the deployment of more American troops to Afghanistan. The question is: Will Barack Obama pay adequate attention to advice provided by Gen. McChrystal and other senior members of our defense community, or will he defer to politicians in D.C. when deciding how he will craft his policies for Persia?

Sen. McCain believes obliging Gen. McChrystal's impending request represents a prudent measure. Sen. Levin, however, believes it does not.

In a September 13 oped published by The Wall Street Journal, Sen. McCain, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R, S.C.) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D/I, C.T.) observed: "We have reached a seminal moment in our struggle against violent extremism, and we must commit the 'decisive force' that Gen. McChrystal tells us carries the least risk of failure." **

Two days earlier, Sen. Levin advised the U.S. should instead waste time training Afghanistan's armed forces and policemen to fight the Taliban.

Given the current political atmosphere, Sen. McCain's suggestions are sure to resonate with too few members of Congress who can sway the president's opinions, and certainly no members of his administration. Yet Sen. Levin's advice, if heeded by the president, will prove tantamount to handing the Afghan Taliban the keys to Kabul.

Many are pointing to Sen. McCain's support for the surge in Iraq as an extension of some sort of wisdom of forethought on the senator's part. History, however, may soon enough tell a different story:

The surge in Iraq may now be viewed as a short term win for U.S. troops there, not the massive victory it's been celebrated as by too many mainstream media outlets here.

The surge in Iraq did not manifest a traditional kinetic forces-oriented win for the U.S. It was not a win in which the enemy surrendered or enough of its troops were killed that fighting thereby concluded. Instead, it was an exercise in economic statecraft. More specifically, it was an effort to financially co-opt militia men in Anwar Province and other areas controlled by Iraqi puppets of Iran. Today, given the rising level of violence in Iraq, it appears those militia men are now increasingly breaking their deals with America.

In other words, the surge represented a greater victory for politicians a sea and an ocean away from the Middle East than it did for America's long-term strategic interests there. In other words, an Iraq-styled surge will not work in Afghanistan.

Just because Sen. McCain was a proponent for the surge in Iraq does not mean the president should consider the senator's input to be strategically sound.

On the other side of the coin, Pres. Obama should not consider the measures proposed by Carl Levin on September 11, 2009 to represent anything other than a path that will prove equally catastrophic for the president's own political future as it will for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and perhaps even the entire world.

It is too late for the U.S. to resort to implementing a program to train Afghans to fight the Taliban. The Taliban is no longer on the run -- it is resurging at an alarming rate.

Dually, in the wakes of the death of Tehrik-i-Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in Pakistan and the more recent captures of several Taliban leaders in Afghanistan, various factions of the Pakistani and Afghan Talibans are engaging in power realignment campaigns. These internal rifts are ultimately rendering their overall organizations less centrally organized and therefore less capable of rapidly coordinating campaigns along Pakistan's northwestern border with Afghanistan.

This period of internal power struggles within each organization presents significant opportunities for the U.S. to eradicate the members of both, once and for all.

Sen. Carl Levin's strategic defenses-focused presentation on the 8-year anniversary of 9/11 enjoyed certain similarities to Pres. Obama's address before Congress earlier in the week: both were delivered far too late, and both were replete with too few meaningful or realistic policy prescriptions.

Sen. McCain's appeals are also arriving a bit late. The U.S. should have overtly committed far more troops to the AfPak combat theater the day Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan. This would have bolstered efforts to strengthen Pakistan's cooperation with the U.S. in the fight against al Qa'ida, post-Musharraf.

Fortunately, there is now a chance for America to take the ground it could have gained had policy-makers not squandered that opportunity -- IF, that is, there is a chance that Obama will do what is needed to win a war he refuses to call by the same name his predecessor bestowed upon it. And that's a big IF.

Irrespective of the tardiness in the deliveries of either senator's policy prescriptions, the opportunity for effecting meaningful change in Persia is now upon us. But the president will have to swim against the political tide in Washington if the ship of U.S. efforts in AfPak is to remain afloat.

Pres. Obama did not hesitate to resort to an "overkill" in his approach to "fixing" America's economic problems. Unlike the outcomes delivered by his administration's "stimulus" program, resorting to an "overkill" approach to resolving the world's problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan will immediately yield much fruit. And when it comes to the extents to which the president must disregard the political will on The Hill in order to implement such measures in AfPak, surely the president must know his cronies like Carl Levin will support their man no matter what he does.

To restore some form of stability and order to the post-Cold War international system the president must muster the political will to do what is needed to destroy any possible futures for both the Taliban and al Qa'ida -- he must fight a war in Afghanistan.

While senators McCain, Graham and Lieberman may believe "we must commit the 'decisive force' that Gen. McChrystal tells us carries the least risk of failure," this American believes the president must instead commit the decisive force that Gen. McChrystal tells us carries the most (emphasis on most) chances for success, and not just the least risk for failure.

But before he does that, Pres. Obama should first disband his war on the CIA here at home.

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* Barnett, Thomas P.M. "The New Rules: In Afghanistan, It's About More Than Just the U.S." World Politics Review, 14 September 2009

** Senators McCain, Graham, Lieberman "Only Decisive Force Can Prevail in Afghanistan," The Wall Street Journal, 13 September 2009

Copyright © 2009 by Michael S. Smith II and The Free Enterprise Foundation. All rights reserved

About the author: Mr. Smith is executive editor of The Ethical Standard: Official Publication of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is also a contributing editor for SCHotline , a Columbia, S.C.-based conservative-oriented news aggregator site. Mr. Smith is a member of The Monday Meeting, an influential forum for conservative policy-makers, business leaders and journalists hosted in New York.

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