7/20/09

The situation in Afghanistan is one of the most challenging foreign policy issues confronting the Obama administration. July is already the deadliest month of the war Coalition forces, as U.S. and Coalition forces have sought to regain the initiative against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. This offensive takes place after seven years of neglect and mismanagement by the Bush administration. President Obama inherited a war that our intelligence agencies said was in a “downward spiral.” With few good options, the Obama administration has laid out a new comprehensive strategy that not only bolsters U.S. military forces, but expands development and reconstruction efforts in order to gain the support of the Afghan people. This approach attempts not just to defeat the Taliban on the battlefield, but to eliminate the support it receives from the population. However, after so many years the patience of the American people and of our allies is wearing thin. Secretary Gates himself said this weekend that the Obama administration’s strategy had a year to show results. The depth of the challenge is underlined by a new report from the Obama administration reviewing the situation at Bagram prison, where hundreds of detainees are housed in harsh conditions.  Overhauling the detainee system in Afghanistan is the right thing to do – but it will bring to light more unpleasant facts about torture and mistreatment under the Bush administration, as well as about the weakness of the Afghan government the Administration must try to strengthen.

Amidst intensifying conflict, Gates says U.S. must demonstrate progress in Afghanistan within one year. Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Robert Gates assessed that the U.S. has a limited window to show progress in Afghanistan.  The Los Angeles Times reported: “After eight years, U.S.-led forces must show progress in Afghanistan by next summer to avoid the public perception that the conflict has become unwinnable, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in a sharp critique of the war effort.  Gates said that victory was a ‘long-term prospect’ under any scenario and that the U.S. would not win the war in a year's time. However, U.S. forces must begin to turn the situation around in a year, he said, or face the likely loss of public support.”  

Gates cited the American experience in Iraq under the Bush administration as putting constraints on options in Afghanistan “After the Iraq experience, nobody is prepared to have a long slog where it is not apparent we are making headway," Gates said to the Times.  Gates’ latest comments continue his record of acknowledging the urgency of the situation in Afghanistan and the need to constantly evaluate progress.  Before a Senate Panel this past January, Gates expressed his worry that “Afghans [will] come to see us as the problem, not the solution, and then we are lost.” The President himself has urged that the war in Afghanistan be constantly evaluated.  Earlier this month, President Obama told a British interviewer that “all of us are going to have to do an evaluation after the Afghan election to see what more we can do.”  [Secretary Gates, via LA Times, 7/19/09. Secretary Gates, via the Washington Independent, 1/27/09.  President Obama via the Politico, 7/13/09.]

Many difficult challenges lie ahead in Afghanistan, as a result of years of Bush administration neglect that put the country in a “downward spiral.”  In Afghanistan, President Obama has inherited daunting challenges that will complicate U.S. efforts.  Last year, a draft National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluded that the country was in a “downward spiral,” an assessment which the New York Times called “a harsh verdict on decision making in the Bush administration.” The Obama administration’s efforts to reverse the Taliban’s ascendancy have contributed to making July the “deadliest [month] since the conflict began,” according to the Washington Post.  A recent New York Times editorial cited that in the month of June, there were “more than 400 attacks, a level not seen since late 2001.”  

Unchallenged corruption and government ineffectiveness are also huge obstacles to progress.  Foreign ministers from the G-8 countries recently lamented the “widespread corruption and capacity shortfalls” that “continue to complicate the delivery of basic services at the local level, including health, education and water,” according to the Associated Press.  In another testament to the salience of corruption for ordinary Afghans, the Associated Press reported that within hours of arriving in an Afghan village during operation Khanjar, “bands of villagers told the Americans that the local police force was a bigger problem than the Taliban.”

Due to these interlocking problems, many Afghans have dim hopes for the future of their country.  A “recent poll by the International Republican Institute (IRI) found that only 30% of Afghans feel their country is headed in the right direction, down from 79% in 2004.”   However,, these downward tends have been years in the making.  A CNN article from February cited a 31% increase in violence in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2008, and a 30% increase from 2008 to 2009.   [Washington Post, 7/18/09. NY Times, 6/22/09. AP, 6/26/09. AP, 7/14/09. IRI, 5/16/09. CNN, 2/2/09. NY Times, 10/9/08. CRS, 02/08]

The Administration faces a daunting challenge in the prison at Bagram Airbase, where hundreds are held in harsh conditions, the Red Cross has documented Bush-era instances of torture, and extremists profit from recruiting opportunities and symbolic shame for the US. Last week, the issue of detainees at Bagram prison drew headlines, as the prisoners protested conditions.  Little unclassified information is available about Bagram, but the Administration has acknowledged that it faces significant challenges across the Afghan prison system as well as at the facility that legal expert Karen Greenberg calls “the other Guantanamo.”

The New York Times reports: “[a] sweeping United States military review calls for overhauling the troubled American-run prison here as well as the entire Afghan jail and judicial systems, a reaction to worries that abuses and militant recruiting within the prisons are helping to strengthen the Taliban... The prison at this air base north of Kabul has become an ominous symbol for Afghans — a place where harsh interrogation methods and sleep deprivation were used routinely in its early years, and where two Afghan detainees died in 2002 after being beaten by American soldiers and hung by their arms from the ceiling of isolation cells. Bagram also became a holding site for terrorism suspects captured outside Afghanistan and Iraq. But even as treatment at Bagram improved in recent years, conditions worsened in the larger Afghan-run prison network, which houses more than 15,000 detainees at three dozen overcrowded and often violent sites. The country’s deeply flawed judicial system affords prisoners virtually no legal protections, human rights advocates say...To help address these problems, Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone of the Marines, credited with successfully revamping American detention practices in Iraq, was assigned to review all detention issues in Afghanistan.”  The Obama administration’s response is part of a greater, more comprehensive approach, the Times goes on to say, “[u]nder the new approach, the United States would help build and finance a new Afghan-run prison for the hard-core extremists who are now using the poorly run Afghan corrections system as a camp to train petty thieves and other common criminals to be deadly militants, the American officials said.” [Associated Press, 6/14/09. Nieman Watchdog, 3/06/09. NY Times, 7/20/09]

What We’re Reading

US troops are finding new restrictions placed upon them by the Iraqi government restrictive. Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki also plans on visiting Arlington National Ceremony in his upcoming trip to Washington while the autonomous Kurdish region sees a campaign of upstarts challenging incumbents for seats in local government.

Iranian Cleric and ex-President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is criticized for challenging Iran’s disputed election results and Supreme Leader Khomeini’s endorsement of that election. Rafsanjani demanded a referendum on the legitimacy of the current government. Ahmadinejad's controversial Vice Presidential choice has apparently resigned because of his moderate stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

President Obama is considering creating a specialized unit of interrogators for seeking intelligence from high-value detainees.

According to experts, the pattern of violence and kidnappings for ransom in Somalia may demonstrate funding for the militants is drying up.

Talks between Honduras’ interim government and deposed President Manuel Zelaya appear to be at an impasse.

A new US report says drug trafficking through Venezuela has increased.

A bombing of hotels frequented by Westerners in Indonesia marks a new resolve by militants.

A peace in the Russian region of Chechnya is broken by a recent spike in political kidnappings, such as the kidnapping and murder of human rights activist Natalia Estemirova.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds few supporters of his verbal endorsement of a two-state solution, while supporting new settlements being built in Palestinian-majority East Jerusalem.

The lone surviving gunman from the Mumbai Attacks pleads guilty.

China rounds up hundreds of Uighurs in an attempt to cut back on ethnic tension in Western China.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili placates his political opposition with pledges to share more power and make elections more democratic.

“The trial of the century” in Turkey pits a government run by an Islamist party against secular members of the military.

Satellite imagery confirms the existence of massive labor camps in North Korea that the North Korean government does not acknowledge.

Commentary of the Day

Thomas Friedman recalls a visit to a girls’ school in Afghanistan and how that visit provides a new perspective on the US war in Afghanistan. Spencer Ackerman takes a skeptical look at this conclusion.

Jim Hoagland and David Ignatius offer 6 month recaps of President Obama’s foreign policy agendas, with Hoagland more optimistic about Obama’s policy trajectory, whereas Ignatius argues more resources are needed to meet Obama’s ambitious goals.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN’s Special Representative for Somalia, explains why current events offer a critical opportunity to get Somalia back on the right track.