EDITORIAL: Reality in Afghanistan

OPINION:

The Obama administration yesterday released the unclassified portions of the Afghanistan and Pakistan Annual Review, produced by the National Security Staff. The upshot of the report is that things are getting better, but there’s a long way to go.

The best news from the Afghan front is that the administration has clarified the president’s timeline for the “Afghanization” of the war. The United States is maintaining the previously announced July 2011 target to “begin the responsible reduction of U.S. forces,” but it will not be the rapid retreat envisioned by some in the O Force such as Vice President Joe Biden. The White House has put its stamp on agreements reached at the NATO summit in Lisbon for “Afghans to assume the lead for security across the country by 2014, and NATO’s enduring commitment beyond 2014.” The notion that America would bug out of Afghanistan in 2011 - a propaganda line seized by radicals to demoralize the Afghan population - is now officially dead.

With respect to al Qaeda, the AfPak review emphasizes the objective not simply to “disrupt” and “dismantle” the terrorist organization but to “eventually defeat al Qaeda in the region.” This is as close as the report comes to discussing actually winning the war, though the Obama team continues to avoid using the term “victory.” The review does note that al Qaeda’s “eventual strategic defeat” in the region will require “the sustained denial of the group’s safe haven in the tribal areas of western Pakistan, among other factors.” At this point, the coalition hasn’t achieved denial of safe haven in Pakistan, let alone sustained denial. The “growing strategic partnership” with Islamabad remains a work in progress; two-thirds of Pakistan’s people disapprove of U.S. policies, one of the highest American disapproval ratings in the world.

The review clings to the notion of a regional solution to Afghanistan’s problems but omits any mention of Iran. Tehran represents a growing challenge in Afghanistan because the mullahs supply insurgents with funding, weapons and safe havens. They also back pro-Iranian political groups and underwrite information operations highly critical of the NATO effort in the country. Whether the solution to this problem is engagement, confrontation or a combination of both, simply ignoring the problem will only make it worse.

The Afghanistan-Pakistan overview also neglects to discuss steps to counter al Qaeda’s regional life-support system centered on Saudi Arabia, which remains the terror group’s largest source of funds. Recent revelations from WikiLeaks show that so long as the violence stays off the Arabian Peninsula, the Saudi leadership is unwilling to crack down seriously on those who underwrite Osama bin Laden’s terrorist enterprise. This also points to the problem of a fundamental divergence of interests in facing off against the Taliban. Only three governments formally recognized the Taliban when they were in power in Kabul prior to the U.S. invasion; Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were two of them.

The Obama administration hasn’t faced the fact that the Pakistani and Saudi Arabian view of an acceptable outcome to the endless Afghan conflict may differ sharply from our own.