A realistic strategy for Afghanistan?

In case the spectacle of the slow-motion train wreck of the global financial system has not got you feeling gloomy enough here’s some happy news about Afghanistan. Britain’s ambassador to Afghanistan says, according to the Guardian quoting Le Canard Enchaîné (a French weekly which combines investigative journalism and satire) ‘US strategy there is failing, Nato reinforcements would be counter-productive and that it would be better if “an acceptable dictator” came to power in Kabul in the next few years…’ The Foreign Office is not commenting except to say that ‘the views quoted are not in any way an accurate representation of the British government’s approach.’

The failure of US strategy bit is a bit rich and bound to annoy the other side of the Atlantic–nothing wrong with UK or NATO strategy? ‘Success has a thousand fathers’, so they say, but failure is American it would seem. However, if the reported words of the ambassador are indeed his I am inclined to say I agree with the essential thrust. Working towards an ‘acceptable dictator’* has at least the merits of being: a/ an actual strategy, where at present I see none; b/ plausibly within our means; and, c/ historically relatively sound. 

Meanwhile Arnaud de Borchgrave at the normally rather pro-warish Washington Times is connecting the geo-political dots:

NATO believes more troops in Afghanistan are needed to restore the initiative. France agreed and is sending 100 more of its elite troops, bringing the French total to 2,700. France, which lost 10 soldiers killed in a Taliban ambush last month, its largest military loss in 25 years, is also urging its European partners to lift all political caveats against putting their troops in harm’s way. But French opinion polls show two in three French people want their soldiers home. French lawmakers appeared to be out of sync with their voters when they approved 343 to 210 a resolution to keep their troops fighting in the war on terror in Afghanistan.

The allied troop total is still just more than 70,000, including 33,000 U.S. troops, for a dirt poor country the size of France. The outgoing NATO commander said 400,000 troops are needed if Taliban is to be defeated. U.S. commanders in Afghanistan requested 15,000 additional U.S. troops to be transferred from Iraq. Pentagon planners could only spare 7,000. The British commander, with 8,000 troops in southern Afghanistan, said he needed another 4,000 for Helmand Province alone, where much of the opium poppy is harvested.

At the time of President Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, 16,500 U.S. military advisers in Vietnam had already morphed into fighting soldiers. And more were already in the pipeline

When President Lyndon B. Johnson decided he would not run for re-election following the 1968 Tet offensive, U.S. boots on the ground had escalated to 546,000. And the war was lost – in the media and in Congress.

In both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the feeling is widespread that the capture or death of Osama bin Laden would trigger appeasement in both the media and in Congress to make a deal with Taliban for a coalition government – and go home.

Many veteran geopolitical thinkers fear either one of the two U.S. presidential candidates will go down the same escalator in Afghanistan. In their campaign pronouncements, both John McCain and Barack Obama are in favor of taking troops out of Iraq to put them into the Afghan war against Taliban. Some call it doubling down, throwing good money after bad.

The new dimension is the $700 billion bailout needed to take an avalanche of bad loans off the books of the financial system – and save Wall Street from a total collapse. This will severely curtail what a new president can do in the first year of his administration. The $200 billion Mr. Bush committed to take over the nation’s two biggest mortgage companies boosted the national debt to $10.6 trillion. Add to that the latest rescue package, and you’re up to $11.3 trillion.

So doubling down in Afghanistan may no longer be an option in 2009.

Actually, I think what Pakistanis think about bin Laden is probably right. They want NATO out of Afghanistan and I believe NATO would like to be shot of the place too. Do we have a convergence of interests? Here’s an idea. Let’s raise the bounty on Osama to $700 billion to be split evenly between Afghanistan and Pakistan on the development of their societies. If, as seems to be the case, the only way to stop the bonfire of the banks is to hose them down with money big time why not double down on the War on Teror while we’re at it? Probably a net gain for everyone in the end.