Sep 05 2009 The Other Voice - Afghanistan the next Vietnam?
Barack Obama campaigned like an anti-war Presidential candidate, but on assuming power was confronted with the reality that the West's position in Afghanistan had become intractable -- same that Nixon faced in Vietnam? Afghanistan is proving to be one of Barack Obama's toughest foreign policy challenges. Eight years after the US, along with its NATO allies, intervened in Afghanistan, the situation there only seems to have got grimmer and parallels are being drawn between Afghanistan and America's war in Vietnam. "Could Afghanistan become Obama's Vietnam?" wrote Peter Baker in a New York Times article last week. Though he agrees that historical analogies are "overly simplistic and fatally flawed," he has set in motion a major debate on the subject. Just a few months back, at the time of his inauguration, Obama was being hailed as a Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D Roosevelt rolled into one, who would usher in a `new deal' that would see the resurgence of the US after eight years of what many saw as the flawed policies of George W Bush. The moment was projected as one of those once-in-a generation occurrences and perhaps expectations from Obama were unrealistically high. Obama acquired the image of an anti-war candidate in the election campaign. However, Presidents, after taking the oath, often confront situations that they do not always either anticipate, or discover, as perhaps Obama did once he assumed office, that there is not much room for maneuverability in foreign affairs. This perhaps accounts for his opting for the "status quo" on the foreign policy front. He gave support for continued NATO expansion as well as maintaining American garrisons around the globe. "But his escalation in Afghanistan most obviously demonstrates that he is a man of the interventionist left," says Doug Bandow of the Washington DC-based CATO Institute. Obama's second 100 days in office have also seen his popularity decline below the 50 per cent mark in July mainly on account of two factors, dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy, especially healthcare and the environment issues, and the manner in which the war in Afghanistan is being conducted. According to Peter Baker, "In this summer of discontent for Mr Obama, as the heady early days give way to the grinding battle for elusive goals, he looks ahead to an uncertain future not only for his legislative agenda but for what has indisputably become his war." There was general optimism when the Obama administration declared its Af-Pak policy on March 27, 2009. The core strategic goal to "disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al-Qaeda and to eliminate the safe havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan" seemed attainable given the popular support that the new administration enjoyed at that time. All that seems to have changed. According to the Stanford University historian, David Kennedy, as quoted in the NYT, President Obama is concerned that Afghanistan could yet `hijack' his presidency, even though he still refers to the war in Afghanistan as "not a war of choice but a war of necessity." The policy of escalating the war in Afghanistan with increased troop presence presents its own challenges. While the generals feel they are over-stretched on the ground, Obama finds that even his own party men in Congress have begun to question the wisdom of sending more troops. There appears to be a growing consensus within the United States to deploy more drones that are seen to be doing a great job in Pakistan and are credited with having decimated the top Taliban leadership in Pakistan territory, including dreaded Baitullah Mehsud. According to a recent Rasmussen Report, 41 per cent of the voters who participated in the poll are less hopeful in August, as compared to a similar poll in June, of the situation improving in Afghanistan. A similar poll conducted in July by the NYT and CBS News showed that 57 per cent of Americans felt that things were not going right for them in Afghanistan. July 2009 also saw the heaviest casualties among the western forces in the eight-year-war. The toll stood at 43 US soldiers and 31 from among the western allies. Mid-July also witnessed emotional scenes in the small town of Wootton Bassett in England when the bodies of eight British soldiers killed in one day's fighting in Afghanistan arrived home. According to a report, an aircraft carrying the coffins landed at an air base in the western Wiltshire County, where a flyover of military jets took place, followed by a ceremony for the families of the dead. Britain has 9,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, stationed in the seething southern Helmand Province which has witnessed pitched guerrilla warfare between the Taliban fighters and British soldiers. Britain is not used to such high casualties in Afghanistan, and the average Briton is beginning to question the value of fighting a long-drawn battle in a faraway land over the long term, especially when the real fight against the Taliban seems to have just begun. While British Prime Minister Gordon Brown might emphasise the need to persist in Afghanistan, the overall public support for his government is dwindling. In his address to the House of Commons recently he declared: "It has been a very difficult summer and it is not over yet, but if we are to deny Helmand to the Taliban in the long term, if we are to defeat this vicious insurgency and by doing so make Britain and the world a safer place, then we must persist with our operations in Afghanistan". Brown is also under sustained attack from the Conservative opposition for allegedly neglecting the safety of British troops by not equipping them properly for the war in Afghanistan. While Britain is committed to "building a better and more stable world", there is no denying the fact that the trans-Atlantic alliance is under tremendous pressure as the western allies try to look for solutions that would create conditions for a quiet withdrawal. For the moment this seems to be wishful thinking. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. 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