Time for a "Team B" on Afghanistan
The Richard Holbrooke event on Afghanistan has produced a great deal of reaction. Marc Lynch (Parsing Team Holbrooke | Marc Lynch) writes:
But I’m actually less worried about the absence of metrics than I am by the continuing lack of clarity about the strategic rationale and core objectives of the mission.
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Is that still the goal, or is constructing a stable and functioning Afghan state now a goal in and of itself? Does achieving the clear, precise goal of fighting al-Qaeda really require the long-term commitment to state-building and counter-insurgency in Afghanistan which is now being pursued? Does it even require defeating the Taliban? I could be convinced that such an approach is required — but find it disturbing that the case is not being made, and that goals remain alarmingly elastic.
Spencer Ackerman (The Washington Independent » Obama Faces Rising Anxiety on Afghanistan) adds:
Holbrooke’s answer suggested an unresolved tension at the level of strategy. He said that it was important to be “clear about what our national interests are,” and that the continued relationships between al-Qaeda and the various Afghan and Pakistani insurgent groups merited ongoing military operations in Afghanistan and more. “The military struggle with U.S. troops is not an open-ended event, but our civilian assistance will continue,” the special envoy said. But he added that defining ultimate success would require applying a “Supreme Court test,” a reference to a line by Justice Potter Stewart about identifying pornography. “We’ll know it when we see it,” Holbrooke said.
This is simply a shocking statement coming from a senior administration official. We literally cannot enunciate our goals in Afghanistan.
The fact is, the chickens are coming home to roost. This sort of half-baked strategic thinking is a hallmark of “groupthink.” The supporters of a significant nation building, counter-insurgency campaign have been so effective in marginalizing dissent and so diligent about only consulting with analysts and military who already shared their biases, that discussions of Afghanistan policy are not designed to optimize our engagement with that country but rather to reinforce and defend the position of those already in control of policy. Clearly no one is asking hard questions, because if they were, the sort of incoherent pronouncement from the administration on Afghanistan would be shot down in internal debates.
If you go into a public meeting and can’t enunciate your goals it is a clear and absolutely unambiguous sign of a broken process.
There is still time to head off disaster, however. The Obama Administration needs to create an expert panel of critics of the war and of COIN — a Team B — with high-level access and a brief to challenge assumptions and force the architects of the Afghanistan policy to defend their arguments in front of a experts who do not have a stake in the existing policy. At the end of the day, the President may choose to continue his course, but at least the process would force some clarity on the ends, means, and ways of our strategy there.
I believe the strategy is clear in the government.
The problem is that the strategy doesn’t convince everyone who counts – for good reasons.