President's decision on troops vital
In the two-front war that Washington is now calling "AFPAK," there's more head-scratching going on than is immediately visible. Yes, President Barack Obama last week approved a Pentagon request to send 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan. But at the same time, he ordered a strategy review to make sure the U.S. isn't marching blindly into what historians call "the graveyard of empires."
Ordering troop deployments before deciding on strategy isn't a great idea - as Iraq demonstrated. But the additional troops are only about half of what U.S. commanders have requested. "The decision on the 17,000 troops is not predictive of the outcome of the strategy review," cautions a top Pentagon official. Obama is reviewing the plans with the baseline that Afghanistan and Pakistan are two theaters in the same war, combating the Taliban and al-Qaida extremists that are operating in both countries. Hence, AFPAK.
U.S. officials were flummoxed by Pakistan's announcement last week that it had negotiated a truce with Islamic rebels in the Swat Valley region. Pakistani officials portray the deal, which would impose Islamic sharia law, as a way to placate tribal leaders and pry them loose from Taliban militants. But American officials are skeptical. They say that while 100,000 Pakistani troops are now deployed in the northwest, the war is going badly. "Even with all that manpower, they're not making much progress," says one key official. Washington fears that Pakistan may want to fold its hand in Swat, to avoid morale problems in an army that would rather be confronting India in the east than Muslim militants in the northwest. A similar stand-down took place several years ago in Waziristan, where Gen. Pervez Musharraf agreed to a truce rather than continue a failing campaign. Today in Waziristan, the only real threats to Taliban and al-Qaida fighters come from U.S. Predator drones overhead. Asked about the Swat truce, Mullen said in a telephone interview: "It's too soon to tell, but the history is not encouraging. It's not good if it's a repeat of what happened before."
Pakistani officials say the government of President Asif Zardari is ready to fight the Muslim militants, if America provides the tools and training for counterinsurgency. On the Pakistani "wish list" are attack helicopters, night-vision equipment, light artillery, jamming equipment to stop Taliban radio broadcasts, and other high-tech gear. The Americans would like to teach counterinsurgency tactics to a Pakistani army organized to fight a traditional war against India. Zardari's government says it is ready. The Pakistanis say they already have authorized 70 U.S. Special Forces advisers to train the Frontier Corps constabulary in the tribal areas along the border. They even talk of secret training camps in America, to reduce the U.S. footprint in Pakistan. The Obama team's broad goal for AFPAK is a three-way strategic engagement. This means billions in economic aid for a collapsing Pakistani economy, a new focus on fighting corruption in Afghanistan, and may mean distancing the U.S. from President Hamid Karzai in advance of Afghanistan's presidential elections in August. Will the new strategy require more U.S. troops than the 17,000 Obama decided to add last week? He will make that decision over the next month, and it will be one of the fateful decisions of his presidency.
© 2009, Washington Post Writers Group