More on what if we fail in Afghanistan?

By Steve Coll Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - 1:21 PM Share

By Steve Coll

I have a new post up on my New Yorker blog.

In the comments on Thomas Ricks’s blog at Foreign Policy, I came across a well-informed dissent to my straw-man forecast about what failure in Afghanistan would bring. Here is the writer’s alternative take on my failure scenarios one and two:
On a 90s-style Afghan Civil War:
There already IS a civil war. It’s just that we’re fighting it on behalf of the Northern Alliance at the moment. We’d have to turn it over to them to fight. Also, one key difference between the 90s War and the new one would be that we would be backing one of the sides with arms, money and diplomatic cover. As would the rest of the world. So all the nasty things that our Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara brethren would be doing to the Pashtuns would be looked over by virtually every major player on the International scene.

On momentum for a Taliban revolution in Pakistan:

I usually agree with Steve Coll about AfPak but the logic behind this scenario is murky, at best. The ISI, as a rule, still backs the ‘Afghan Taliban.’ The loose coalition of militants that exists in FATA and NWFP that are known as the ‘Pakistani Taliban’ have distinct ambitions from the ‘Afghan Taliban.’ They attack ISI and Pak military targets, and the leaders have supposedly said they would target NATO convoys once they’re ‘finished’ with the Pak Army. No one yet knows what the future of the two Talibans is going to be. Steve’s assumption seems to be the ‘worst case scenario.’ And even then it doesn’t address the fact that the ‘Afghan Taliban,’ in helping the ‘Pakistani Taliban,’ would be biting the hand that helped create them (ISI), sustain them, protect them, and brought them back to power again….
Just a couple of thoughts. I take the point that the international community already engaged in an Afghan civil war; that’s well said. But it is for the moment clearly a war that is not yet producing the kinds of ethnic schisms and civilian deaths familiar from the recent past. Note the Oxfam poll of Afghan civilians, for example, as evidence about skeptical Afghan attitudes toward the Taliban, despite the stresses and failures of the Karzai government.

To read the rest, visit Think Tank.

Steve Coll is the president of the New America Foundation and a staff writer at The New Yorker.

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KUNINO

1:21 PM ET

November 19, 2009

Look this way

Coll on the current Afghanistan civil war: "But it is for the moment clearly a war that is not yet producing the kinds of ethnic schisms and civilian deaths familiar from the recent past."

Take out the "not", and you have a pretty good description of what's uncoiling in Iraq at the moment.

NAZIA

3:23 AM ET

November 21, 2009

US Policy In Afghanistan

For US think tanks it might be failure in strategies but we the resident of south Asians are loosing our identity ,culture, peace of mind and hope for honest management in our system,
Both Head of states of Afghanistan and Pakistan are known mercenaries since their invasions in field of politics and that is why both are blue boy of Americans.US always support personalities in our region as per need and for controlling the major artery of our system of governance. They always preferr to pick army generals as best option as messenger of commands and transfer orders by bullying the whole nation .Through this way of governance they have destroyed all our political and social setup.They always talked about US aide to Pakistan and this phrase is same copied by analysts too.Do all deny that majority of our population is unapproachable and ignorant of any supply from super power which she claims in all forums.
They promote weak and corrupt personalities in our system, who are more disliked by our people owing to his/her corruption details and for worst management skills.
So all this created mess with our boundaries and in our surroundings too.Now the presence of NATO forces is contributing in all failures toward peace and honest civilian empowerment in the region.Karachi's fake victory is it self explanatory of US failures and then her forced denial of wrong doings is further adding fuel into already charred situation.

KUNINO

4:05 PM ET

November 21, 2009

There are other, visible, stresses and failures.

Time to revive the old line about rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic.

Enough about the stresses and failures of the Karzai government. How about the stresses and failure of the American miliary in Afghanistan? The failure is plain, and generals Petraeus and McChrystal have been proclaiming it since June. Hard to believe that the question of whether either of these officers should be relieved of command there does not make up part of the current lengthy White House debate.

General McChrystal in particular seems to commit some of his martial energy to civil war within the United States.

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