Leveraging Afghanistan for poll gain

Despite a 10 per cent unemployment rate in the US and serious economic challenges ahead, President Barack Obama's decision to leverage Afghanistan probably secured his re-election in 2012. In effect, and notwithstanding a Nobel Peace Prize, Obama assumed the George W. Bush mantle because he understands that American presidents at peace face insurmountable electoral hurdles.

Except for John F. Kennedy, every American president since Franklin D. Roosevelt has been mired in foreign conflicts. Roosevelt fought the mother of all wars, when a neat ideological confrontation justified unadulterated battles, which cost millions of lives.

Harry S Truman, who will perpetually be associated with atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that killed at least 250,000 in a few instants, engaged in the first non-conclusive Cold War conflict in Korea.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, a decent warrior who loathed battles and stopped Britain, France and Israel in the 1956 Suez War, nevertheless committed troops to Lebanon in 1958.

Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon will forever be linked with the debacles of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, whereas Jimmy Carter's cross is the failed American hostages rescue attempt in Iran.

More recently, Ronald Reagan, a B-movie actor who was miraculously elected to play a different role in Washington, dipped in the waters of Grenada as well as Leban-on and Libya. His successor, George H. W. Bush, fought in the first Gulf War, or more precisely, the War for Kuwait.

Bill Clinton, the paragon of the politically engagé leader who never served in the military and who was quickly ostracised by the rank and file, did not hesitate to use force frequently in Somalia (1993), Bosnia (1995), Afghanistan (1998), Sudan (1998), Serbia (1999) and Iraq (on and off after 1998).

For his part, George W. Bush earned his wings in the Texas National Guard, but he will probably be always remembered for his post-9/11 wars against Afghanistan (2001- ) and Iraq (2003- ), both of which are in advanced stages of rot.

Again, all of these men appreciated the political value of military campaigns, and while Kennedy had many shortcomings, warmongering was not one of his traits. Simply stated, his machismo lied elsewhere (no pun intended), rather than compete with medal-loaded officials.

To be sure, he took the US, as well as the rest of the world, to the brink of a nuclear clash during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but deeply regretted his carelessness.

This was the reason why he hesitated over Vietnam, though we will never know if he would have ended America's military commitments in Southeast Asia, were he not shamelessly gunned down.

Making it worse

Obama's decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan must be assessed with this background in mind. Sadly, his commitments will surely exacerbate the conflict and ensure a long-term civil war, though this is tangential. Obama wants to prove that the US can impose its will for its own sake.

This is not because Al Qaida might re-establish itself there once the Taliban prevail as Washington claims. In fact, independent analysts maintain that there is no evidence that Al Qaida is a credible force at this point, with most of its leaders either dead or incarcerated.

Even in Afghan President Hamid Karzai's shaky environment, the Taliban are unlikely to regain power, because insurgents operating out of Pakistan have little or no backing beyond the Pashtun community.

Rather, Afghanistan's majority population, which are the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, will not allow the Taliban to re-conquer Afghanistan. Indeed, this will be the case even after all Nato forces return to their respective homes, and allow the hapless Afghans to sort out their decades-long political differences.

Like several of his predecessors, Obama is on the verge of enrolling in a new educational course: introduction to ethnic politics 101. In his case, the lessons will include Pashtuns versus Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. He will learn about their decades-old competition for power, which will outlast a potential second Obama term in office.

Bush was not a particularly good student when he took the same class in Iraq, as Kurds, Sunni and Shiite Arabs, engaged in an on-going civil war, whose concluding chapters have yet to be written.

Today, there is a chimerical wish to give the military two years to fix Afghanistan before starting a phased withdrawal, ostensibly by training an estimated 100,000 new Afghan soldiers, as well as an equal number of new policemen, to assume indigenous responsibilities.

Few ask how this may be possible given Afghanistan's small population, with millions of refugees, whose survival priorities differ sharply from any Kabul-induced scheme? How could a geographically vast country ruled by ethnic allegiances establish a state militia free of nepotism, corruption, and assorted ills that pencil pushing Western bureaucrats can seldom fathom?

Now that Obama has made his decision — to be re-elected — chances are excellent that the Afghan crisis will stay on our front pages and on television screens for years to come.

Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan are no different from many other ethnic communities around the world. They too will fight for their perceived rights, even if foreigners leverage their sacrifices for irrelevant gains.

Dr. Joseph A. Kechichian is a commentator and author of several books on Gulf affairs.