Afghanistan

Obama’s choice on Afghanistan

The New York Times reports that President Obama has re-opened internal debate about Afghan policy, suggesting that he is going to u-turn from the counter-insurgency strategy that he announced in March. It seems that Joe Biden, who lost the policy argument last time round, might win out with his argument that, “Instead of increasing troops, officials said, Mr. Biden proposed scaling back the overall American military presence. Rather than trying to protect the Afghan population from the Taliban, American forces would concentrate on strikes against Qaeda cells, primarily in Pakistan, using special forces, Predator missile attacks and other surgical tactics.” If Obama were to adopt this strategy, it would put

The McChrystal plan

So, the report written by ISAF commander, Stanley McChrystal, to President Obama on NATO’s Afghan mission has been published. It does not contain a request for more US troops, but most analysts think it is only a matter of time before a request is sent from Kabul. In the recently-published report, McChrystal says: “While the situation is serious, success is still achievable.” But serious changes will be required. These will have to address what McChrystal calls “The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials.” The US general also admits “ISAF’s own errors”. Bear in mind, though, that the report was

Decision time for Obama

Bob Woodward has the scoop that General McChrystal’s review of Afghan strategy calls for more troops. McChrystal is direct, stating that “ISAF requires more forces” and that “inadequate resources will likely result in failure”. He is also clear that these troops are needed now, “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.” McChrystal has yet to present his request for more troops to the Pentagon but it is clear that he will ask the administration for considerably more troops. Obama now has to decide whether

Petraeus’ lonely fight

At last night’s Policy Exchange lecture, General David Petraeus said he had known the former CDS, Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, since “he was simply Sir Charles.” I met Petraeus for the first time when he was simply a colonel, serving with NATO forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Even then he was thought of as a rising star. His leadership in Iraq, first in Mosul and then in Baghdad has only cemented his reputation. Now, however, the scholar-warrior faces his probably greatest task – helping to defeat Taliban insurgents on both sides of the Durand Line. An effort, he said upon assuming command of CENTCOM in 2008, which might turn out to be

What happens next in Afghanistan?

The latest results from Afghanistan’s presidential election are showing that the incumbent President Hamid Karzai has garnered 54.1 percent of the vote after 92 percent of polling stations declared. Crucially, this puts him above the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a run-off with rival Abdullah Abdullah. But the result has been greeted with derision by observers, while the Election Complaints Commission (ECC) has said a recount and inspection should be done for any polling station where 600 or more votes were cast, or where any single candidate got more than 95% of votes. So what happens next? First of all, expect a fight to develop between the Independent Election

Brown’s Afghanistan speech was encouraging, but the strategy’s still flawed

Brown’s delivery may have been beyond sepulchral, but the content was encouraging. He laid out how Afghan stability is being bolstered by the increased activity and competence of Afghan security forces, the replacement of the heroin crop with wheat, an intensification of government in rural hinterlands and by arresting urban corruption. At least there now seems to be a degree of co-ordination between coalition and Afghan security operations, civic reconstruction and the administration of government. These are welcome changes but there is still no overarching sense of what the ‘Afghan mission’ hopes to achieve, beyond the dubious contention that it will make the West safer. As a result, a number

James Forsyth

Lib Dems moving towards advocating withdrawal from Afghanistan

Nick Clegg’s statement today on Afghanistan strongly suggests to me that by the time of the next election the Lib Dems will be for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Clegg told the BBC that: “I think there’s a tipping point where we have to ask ourselves whether we can do this job properly, and if we can’t do it properly we shouldn’t do it at all. I don’t think we are there yet,” he said. Clegg’s use of the word yet seems to be a definite hint that he is moving towards advocating withdrawal. In crude political terms, this would make a lot of sense for the Lib Dems. It would give

Why Britain needs to stay in Afghanistan

With the resignation of Eric Joyce as PPS to the Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth, the question of why Britain is part of the NATO-led Afghan mission has taken on new force. No doubt the Prime Minister will explain what he sees as the reasons when he speaks at IISS later today. But just because Gordon Brown supports a policy does not make it wrong. Here are the reasons why we should remain engaged: 1. To deny Al Qaeda a safe-haven from which to train and organise attacks on the West. Though terrorism can be organized in Oldham, Hamburg and Marseilles, Al Qaeda still believes it needs safe-havens in places like

Eric Joyce resigns as PPS to the Defence Secretary

In a move that is sure to overshadow the Prime Minister’s speech on Afghanistan tomorrow, Eric Joyce, a former army office, has tonight resigned as PPS to the Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth. In his resignation letter, published on the Channel 4 website, Joyce says that the public would “appreciate more direct approach by politicians” to the Afghanistan question and that the public will not “accept for much longer that our losses can be justified by simply referring to the risk of greater terrorism on our streets.” Joyce also states that there must be a run off in the Afghan election if public support for the deployment there is to be

Alex Massie

A Nice Little War for Slow Learners: Is the Army Fit for Purpose?

Most arguments about Afghanistan this summer quickly became another opporturnity to bash the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Defence. No surprise there and, of course, a good deal of the criticism about the shortage of helicopters and other equipment has some merit to it. But the government’s failures, manifold as they are, ought not to be the sole focus of attention. They matter, but so too does the actual performance of the armed forces. Is the Army doing enough with what it’s got? And can it legitimately be expected to do better? The political leadership in London matters, but that doesn’t mean the Army top brass can deftly shift

What are they smoking?

In the midst of all the doom and gloom coming from Afghanistan, the UN has published a report saying that there had been a 22 percent decrease in poppy cultivation in the country and a 33 percent reduction in Helmand alone. The number of “poppy free” provinces has also increased from 18 to 20. The UN called this “undeniable progress” and a “dramatic turn. Desperate for good news, the FCO welcomed “this progress” and credited Helmand Governor Gulab Mangal for giving “people a real alternative to drugs and the Taliban.” No doubt Governor Mangal did his best, alongside Gul Agha Sherzai of Nangarhar province, which in the past used to

Is Saving Face the Real Afghanistan Strategy?

Losing George Will on Afghanistan is not quite the same as losing Walter Cronkite on Vietnam. For one thing, Will’s column today, calling for the United States to withdraw most of its troops from Afghanistan, can hardly be considered a surprise. Will, less fashionable in recent years than in the past, has long been suspicious of, even hostile to, anything that could be considered “nation-building”. Nonetheless, it is a moment. A minor one, but a moment nevertheless. Obama – and General Stanley McChrystal – can count on support from the neoconservative wing of the Republican party, but conservative support for the Afghan campaign can be expected to slowly ebb away. 

But he did for the both of them with his plan of attack

The tension between defence ministers and senior officers has been a running story throughout the summer, perhaps at the expense of the opinions of troops on the ground. The Times’ war correspondent, Anthony Loyd, wrote a piece today describing soldiers’ views in the wake of the Prime Minister’s visit: ‘One can only hope that if Mr Brown had braved the journey northwards from Bastion to Sangin (he didn’t), where British infantrymen are getting killed or wounded at a rate directly comparable to that of their predecessors in Western Europe in 1944, his media men would have first whitewashed the graffiti in the latrine third from the left on the northern wall. ‘“I

Negotiating with the Taliban is fantasy

Lots of photo opportunities for the Prime Minister in Afghanistan, looking almost louche in shirt-sleeves and tie, but he’s attempted to provide some much needed direction for the Afghan mission. Last month, David Miliband said that Nato must talk to the Taliban and the Guardian reports that Brown is considering reconciliation also. Here are the details: ‘A source close to Brown suggested negotiations with insurgents sympathetic to the Taliban, persuading them to switch sides, now formed a key component of Britain’s war effort. He added: “The more reconciliation, the better.” Diplomatic sources in Helmand suggested such efforts could be on a large scale: “A large part of the Taliban are

(Some) Afghans vote

So the Afghans have now voted in their second-ever presidential elections. Well, some of them have. But with the extent of voting unclear, accusations of poll-rigging rife and violence claiming countless innocent lives, it is far too early to call the process a success. Today, the Elections Commission will likely release preliminary results, with a full tally expected in a month’s time. Wisely, key US and UK officials have been circumspect in their pronouncements. The EU Monitoring Mission has said the election was “mostly good and fair.”  But Afghan observers cited “some credible allegations of fraud and mistakes by elections officials.”  NDI, the US organisation, said the poll “involved serious

Can the Afghan police be trusted?

Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4’s Helmand correspondent asked local Police Chief, Colonel Asadullah Shirzard, if the police were sufficiently free from corruption to manage the forthcoming election. The corpulent Colonel declaimed:  “We have eradicated corruption in our police force!” This is a seminal moment. Rudy Giuliani couldn’t do it, Sir Ian Blair failed, though that’s no surprise, and moving around Venezuela will confirm that even Hugo Chavez can’t stop his police taking a cut from the downtrodden population. But in war-torn Helmand, the perfect police force has been born. As Hilsum notes, this is even more extraordinary when one considers that Helmand is the centre of the opium trade and that

Another example of why the US needs more troops in Afghanistan

The Wall Street Journal’s write up of its interview with the new US commander in Afghanistan, General McChrystal, demonstrates why more troops are needed in Afghanistan. The Journal concentrates on the suspicion among some in military circles that the Taliban are using the American emphasis on Helmand to strengthen their grip on Kandahar, the capital of the South and the Taliban’s traditional stronghold. The paper reports that the Taliban are setting up shadow government and court system there. However, McChrystal can’t move troops there until the planned reinforcements arrive as those deployed in Helmand ‘have already set up forward operating bases and recruited help from local tribal leaders, who have

Splits emerging in Pakistani Taliban

Splits appear to be emerging in the Pakistani Taliban after a US drone-strike reportedly killed its leader. The New York Times says that a ‘Pakistani government official and an intelligence official said Hakimullah Mehsud, a young and aggressive aide to the former Taliban leader, had been shot dead in a fight with Waliur Rehman, another commander who was seeking to become the leader.’ As a US official tells the paper, splits within the group can be exploited by the US and the Pakistanis. Also anything that limits the Pakistani Taliban’s effectiveness is to be welcomed—the Pakistani state fully collapsing under jihadi pressure is the nightmare scenario. However, a split within

Preparing for a lengthy presence in Afghanistan

So what do we learn from the Times’s interview with David Richards, the man who is set to replace Richard Dannatt as the head of the British Army?  Both a little and a lot.  Most of the piece is made up of nice anecdotes and flatering quotes about the general, and he deflects a lot of the weightier questions with utterly uncontroversial answers – i.e. declining to say whether the army is properly resourced, and adding that “our own tactics must reflect the equipment and troop numbers we have.”   But some of his responses are much more eyecatching; as when he claims the “whole process [in Afghanistan] might take