Barack Obama's latest formulation on Afghanistan is a continuation of the former administration's muddle: We are there because we can't just up and leave. That would be an admission of defeat.
Given the need for a more respectable rationale for staying on, Obama has opted for Bush's: We must defeat Al Qaeda because it poses a threat to us.
Except that it no longer does. Even if it does, it does so from Pakistan, Osama bin Laden and his ilk being in caves there. So, why not attack Pakistan rather than go on spinning our wheels in Afghanistan?
But Obama being Obama, he has offered, even within the faulty framework he has adopted, a more honest and intelligent assessment of the crisis and an acute awareness of some regional realities.
NATO is not only not winning, it has been losing to the Taliban.
The allied aim is no longer to vanquish them but rather to contain them – "reverse their momentum" – so that they don't topple the Hamid Karzai government.
That means talking to and buying off as many Taliban as possible on the one hand, and curbing Karzai corruption and incompetence on the other. (Easier said than done.)
There's no more talk of transplanting a modern, Western-style democracy in Afghanistan or of liberating Afghan women. But there is of a timetable for American troop withdrawal: 2011 onward.
Besides the military surge, there's to be a parallel "civilian surge" for development and reconstruction. Plus, most sensibly, "an effective partnership with Pakistan."
"In the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan narrowly. Those days are over ...
"America is providing substantial resources to support Pakistan's democracy and development ...
"America will remain a strong supporter of Pakistan's security and prosperity long after the guns have fallen silent."
Noting that the Pakistani army has launched offensives against militants in Swat and South Waziristan, he promised: "We will strengthen Pakistan's capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries, and have made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known, and whose intentions are clear."
That's a loaded sentence. It papers over deep differences with Pakistan, while warning Islamabad to go after the Taliban leadership that's said to be safely ensconced in Quetta, across from the Afghan border.
The Pakistani army is going after the "Pakistani Taliban," not – as the U.S. wants – the "Afghan Taliban."
It does not take on the latter for practical as well as strategic reasons. Its troops are stretched. They do not have the equipment needed for mountain warfare, especially helicopters, of which the U.S. has given only 10 of late. More important, why pick a fight with a force that may, even under Obama's plan of a political solution, get a share of power in Kabul?
The Afghan Taliban are also Pakistan's trump card against archrival India, which is cozy with Karzai.
Obama has another problem. The Pakistani army is operating independently of the civilian government. It traditionally has. But it is particularly wary of President Asif Ali Zardari. His grip on power is shaky. He's busy fighting off past corruption charges. His ruling Peoples Party is divided. To stay in power, he says yes to everything Washington wants. But the national consensus is against taking dictation from the U.S. And the army has its view of what is or is not possible.
Hovering above all this is a national sentiment that while a limited U.S. presence in Afghanistan is welcome (to avoid a vacuum that would only be filled by India), too big an American footprint could spill the war over into Pakistan.
Obama has understood that there can be no solution to Afghanistan without a solution to Pakistan. "We need a strategy that works on both sides of the border."
But I am told his advisers are deeply divided on how to resolve the Af-Pak dilemmas – and the complex Indo-Pak imperatives.
All that can be said for now is that he has made a good beginning.
But Obama being Obama, he has offered, even within the faulty framework he has adopted, a more honest and intelligent assessment of the crisis and an acute awareness of some regional realities.
NATO is not only not winning, it has been losing to the Taliban.
The allied aim is no longer to vanquish them but rather to contain them – "reverse their momentum" – so that they don't topple the Hamid Karzai government.
That means talking to and buying off as many Taliban as possible on the one hand, and curbing Karzai corruption and incompetence on the other. (Easier said than done.)
There's no more talk of transplanting a modern, Western-style democracy in Afghanistan or of liberating Afghan women. But there is of a timetable for American troop withdrawal: 2011 onward.
Besides the military surge, there's to be a parallel "civilian surge" for development and reconstruction. Plus, most sensibly, "an effective partnership with Pakistan."
"In the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan narrowly. Those days are over ...
"America is providing substantial resources to support Pakistan's democracy and development ...
"America will remain a strong supporter of Pakistan's security and prosperity long after the guns have fallen silent."
Noting that the Pakistani army has launched offensives against militants in Swat and South Waziristan, he promised: "We will strengthen Pakistan's capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries, and have made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known, and whose intentions are clear."
That's a loaded sentence. It papers over deep differences with Pakistan, while warning Islamabad to go after the Taliban leadership that's said to be safely ensconced in Quetta, across from the Afghan border.
The Pakistani army is going after the "Pakistani Taliban," not – as the U.S. wants – the "Afghan Taliban."
It does not take on the latter for practical as well as strategic reasons. Its troops are stretched. They do not have the equipment needed for mountain warfare, especially helicopters, of which the U.S. has given only 10 of late. More important, why pick a fight with a force that may, even under Obama's plan of a political solution, get a share of power in Kabul?
The Afghan Taliban are also Pakistan's trump card against archrival India, which is cozy with Karzai.
Obama has another problem. The Pakistani army is operating independently of the civilian government. It traditionally has. But it is particularly wary of President Asif Ali Zardari. His grip on power is shaky. He's busy fighting off past corruption charges. His ruling Peoples Party is divided. To stay in power, he says yes to everything Washington wants. But the national consensus is against taking dictation from the U.S. And the army has its view of what is or is not possible.
Hovering above all this is a national sentiment that while a limited U.S. presence in Afghanistan is welcome (to avoid a vacuum that would only be filled by India), too big an American footprint could spill the war over into Pakistan.
Obama has understood that there can be no solution to Afghanistan without a solution to Pakistan. "We need a strategy that works on both sides of the border."
But I am told his advisers are deeply divided on how to resolve the Af-Pak dilemmas – and the complex Indo-Pak imperatives.
All that can be said for now is that he has made a good beginning.
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