Afghanistan is not easy to crack

By S.P.SETH

There are two distinctive features of the recent military offensive by the US and its allies in Afghanistan. First, it was announced with great fanfare quite some time before the military operations actually started in the Helmand province. Second, after its commencement, a virtual victory was announced with equal fervor.

It would now seem that the prize of Marjah, considered an important center of the Taliban power is under US control. Now there is talk of installing a local regime there, assured of all the funding for development projects with the prospect of creating employment opportunities.

From the enthusiastic conversation going on in the US camp, Marjah is going to become the show case of what will be possible with the ejection of the Taliban insurgents—a secure Afghanistan under a democratic Afghan political order with immense opportunities for its people for employment and to develop their potential.

In their enthusiasm for Marjah as a blueprint (yet to materialize) for a new Afghanistan, the question of a corrupt and incompetent Hamiz Karzai regime, as the kingpin of the old/ new political order, is conveniently overlooked.

Will the Karzai regime have a miraculous transformation to become the agent of positive change in the country? Even if that were possible (an unlikely development on the basis of the experience so far), where is the institutional, infrastructural and popular backup for this to happen?

Afghanistan is a tribal structure divided by ethnicity, with multiple dialects and language groups. And to superimpose a European political model on such foundations is bound to be creaky, unsound and likely to fail.

At the same time, to imagine that Afghanistan’s newly minted armed forces (with no background and experience of a disciplined armed force) will answer to a civilian government (racked by tribal and ethnic factions and corrupt to the boot) is beyond comprehension.

One wishes this would be possible, but it is as well to deal with realities.

However, the scenario of a model Marjah, and eventually a successful Afghanistan, is predicated on the elimination of the Taliban, not only in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan that is the sanctuary of its leadership. But this is not achieved by simply prevailing in Marjah, a small enclaave in Helmand province.

Indeed, as was expected, the Taliban has simply dispersed to regroup to fight another day and at another place.

One explanation for the new military offensive, and the emphasis on its successful culmination, is: to impress on the moderates and the rank and files that the Taliban’s days are over, and that they might as well opt for political reconciliation with the existing order to participate in the political process. Bu so far this is not happening in any significant way, if at all.

It was clear that the Taliban wouldn’t fight an overwhelmingly powerful US army, being no match for them in open warfare. Their strategy has been to slow down the enemy by planting the terrain with improvised explosive devices (IED), distract them with sniper fire, to retreat in the face of overwhelming enemy force and weaponry, and to disperse and operate in small mobile guerilla formations.

Unlike regular armies, like the United States, they don’t have a rigid and stratified chain of command. And they have the advantage of flexibility and surprise.

Much was made that the US now had a new strategy of securing the population centers. But there have been a number of civilian deaths from NATO bombing ever since the operations began in Helmand province not so long ago, inviting condemnation by the Afghan government and others.

At the same there is now talk of expanding NATO military offensive into Kandahar province with a population of more than a million people; being the nerve centre of the Taliban. This will be a much bigger operation involving greater civilian deaths, and greater resistance from the Taliban.

Of course, they will have no chance of defeating the NATO troops, though they will try to draw out the enemy forces into their favored terrain to inflict maximum casualties.

One important advantage the Taliban has is that they are not fighting to a time schedule like the Americans are, and they are fighting in their own homeland. The American military is supposed to turn around the outcome of the war between 12 to 18 months, though there is some, but not much, flexibility about the time frame.

But considering that the next US presidential election is in 2012, any prolonged military operations will have political consequences back home.

But the Taliban doesn’t have such time constraints. They simply have to wait out the Americans who won’t be able to remain significantly involved in Afghanistan for a prolonged period.

Therefore, the idea that by inflicting set-piece military defeat on the Taliban they might be coerced into political reconciliation with the Karzai regime and enter the political system, is far-fetched. They have turned down many overtures to this effect in the past from President Karzai and others.

They want the withdrawal of foreign military forces from Afghanistan before considering any internal political reconciliation.

The fact of the matter is that once there is a major drawdown of American forces from Afghanistan, the Karzai government’s days will be numbered, being seen as a tool of the US occupation.

Therefore, the advice of the US ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, to President Obama (before he made the decision to send another 30, 000 US troops into Afghanistan) is still relevant.

He advised (in a cable since leaked): “The proposed [US] counter-insurgency strategy assumes an Afghan political leadership that is able to both take responsibility and to exert sovereignty in the furtherance of our goal.”

But, he added, that the Karzai government and the people around him, “do not want the US to leave and are only too happy to see us invest further” in the Afghan operation.

In other words, they won’t mind the US forces bogged down in Afghanistan on behalf of the Karzai government.

Iran is an Explosive Issue

By S.P.SETH

While Pakistan and Afghanistan remain in crisis engaging a lot of US energy and resources, Iran is emerging as a serious challenge for the Obama Administration. It is, of course, evident that its nuclear ambitions are a cause for worry.

Iran, of course, claims that its nuclear enrichment plans are for peaceful purposes to fuel its power plants and for manufacturing medical isotopes.

The Western solution is for Iran is to have bulk of its uranium enriched in Russia and France to a level required for peaceful purposes.

But Iran is not interested in this proposition, although it has shown some perfunctory interest at times to divide its opponents.

Indeed, President Ahmadinejad has said that Iran can now enrich uranium to 80 per cent purity. Which is quite close to (at 90 per cent) making an atomic bomb.

If it is true that Iran has the technology to enrich uranium to such a high level, then it indeed is a virtual, though not an actual, nuclear power.

And its President still insists that Iran’s intentions are purely for peaceful atomic purposes. In any case, he has unilaterally declared Iran as a nuclear power.

It has put the United States in a quandary. The US, and its Western allies, have sought to project Iran as a dangerous nuclear power in the making, though estimates of the time-frame vary from a few months to a few years.

But when Iran has made their task easy by proclaiming itself as a nuclear power, albeit a peaceful one, they don’t believe it. According to Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, the Iranian bluster is “based on politics, not physics.”

He added, “The Iranian nuclear program has undergone a series of problems throughout the year.” And: “We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching.”

This is probably a more honest assessment of Iran’s nuclear capability. But the US runs into a contradiction of sorts here by simultaneously talking up the Iranian nuclear danger, as well as talking it down by insisting that Iran doesn’t have the capability to enrich uranium to the level of making an atomic bomb. There is obviously an inconsistency here.

The fact is that, after having enriched uranium to an admittedly low level, Iran now has the material and the technology to work the whole fuel cycle over a period of time, if it wanted to do it. The time frame for this, however, is likely to be in terms of a few years and not a few months.

It is this Iranian potential to eventually become a nuclear power that haunts the United States. They believe that a nuclear Iran would be a de-stabilizing factor in a strategically important region with the word’s largest oil reserves.

During her recent visit to the Gulf region, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has rallied support against Iran’s nuclear ambitions, emphasizing it as a threat to regional stability; by creating an arms race in the region for nuclear technology and weapons.

To further highlight the danger in Iran (both for that country’s internal stability, and the region), she has hammered the message that Iran is heading toward a military dictatorship of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

And, of course, the pressure for comprehensive sanctions against Iran continues, with Saudi Arabia being enlisted to lean on China for a UN Security Council resolution to this effect.

These Gulf States, like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, are already beholden to the United States for their ultimate security. And the US is selling them billions of dollars of US weapons. Which means they don’t need much convincing.

The US has also created a security ring around Iran in the Gulf, ostensibly to protect its strategic interests and to defend its regional allies.

Despite all this, Iran remains defiant. Going by the history of three sets of sanctions already in place, they haven’t been terribly successful. The fourth set, now under consideration, is supposed to widen the net to further increase pressure on Iran.

Some comfort is drawn from the indications that Russia might come on board to further tighten the cordon. China is still an uncertainty but pressure is mounting on it to isolate Iran.

Even if China were to come on board, there is no guarantee that Beijing and Moscow would apply the sanctions as rigorously as the US and its Western allies.

Then there are all sorts of informal and backroom channels to circumvent the sanctions, the way Iran has done so far.

If sanctions do not produce desired results, will that lead to military action against Iran under US stewardship. To put it another way, will Israel get the carte blanche to target Iranian nuclear facilities?

So far, the US push is for comprehensive international sanctions, combined with diplomatic pressure.

But the message is a bit mixed, with the White House spokesman saying at a recent press conference that all the options are open—reminiscent of the Bush period.

There are also efforts to destabilize the clerical regime, which is under pressure from its internal political foes since the alleged rigging of the presidential election in favor of the incumbent President Ahmadinejad.

This is the first time that the clerical regime has come under such concerted public pressure and protests from within its own ranks. Which makes it a bit vulnerable.

However, the enhanced international pressure on its nuclear program is most likely to rally the nation behind the present clerical regime. And if there is any follow up military action, there might even be a repetition of the zeal and fervor of the 1979 revolution.

Besides, any military attack on Iran, with its strident anti-Israeli and anti-American rhetoric, is likely to further fuel the hostility of the Islamic world—notwithstanding the sectarian Sunni and Shia divide. And the US reliance on authoritarian rulers in the Arab world, who do not always represent their people, is a negative factor for the United States.

In other words, the United States will have to carefully consider the explosive situation that might arise from any military attack on Iran, including the likely sky rocketing of oil prices and disruption of supplies. This alone could bring the world economy to a halt, with its nascent recovery dead in its tracks.