Revenge is a dish best served deadly and it was at its deadliest when the Taliban shot down a Chinook ratcheting up a death count of 31, including members of the now legendary Navy Seals Team Six. That one decade into the war, the US still sees ‘deadliest days’ in the campaign is a comment on how badly the US has fared. Only the smoking out of OBL was a much-vaunted dash of glory in an otherwise inglorious run.
Afghanistan is fast becoming the Slough of Despond for the Americans. The US has failed more or less on all counts of its ‘clear, hold and build’ strategy. On the first count, insurgents are comfortably ensconced in dens all over the country. There have been some gains in the South in Helmand and Kandahar but the East, North and Northeast are still beleaguered with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and their affiliates.
On the count of ‘hold’, much of the gains are expected to be reversed as US accelerates its drawdown while not attending to the attendant concerns. The 30,000 surge in forces is expected to be recalled by September 2012. While a pullout is the right long-term strategy for the US and the Afghans, it has to be timed right. The Afghanistan National Security Forces and the Afghan National Police are nowhere near being able to deal with the security mess that Afghanistan is.
Which brings us to the ‘build’ part. It is not just the security forces that are woefully untrained; the US has been virtually unable to build the state structure, or indeed any kind of infrastructure, in Afghanistan. The growing pains of the Afghan state are going to be numerous and torturous. Difficulties await.
The US military strategy malfunction has pushed the US towards seeking a political situation. But if anything is rockier than Afghanistan’s geography, it is its political terrain characterised by a superfluity of players. As the ‘talks about talks’ continue with many including the Taliban, the US has many problems to navigate. Experts are polarised over the prospects for these peace talks but it can’t be denied that they are the only out in the long run and the military answer of more time, more force won’t cut it. Talks won’t be easy but the US should be careful. It should integrate its political and military strategies as they seem to be at odds right now. It should not dig itself deeper into a hole in the land that isn’t known for nothing as the ‘graveyard of empires.’