Abu Muqawama retains its autonomy and the views and beliefs expressed within the blog do not reflect those of CNAS.
Well whoever leaked the fact that Karl Eikenberry is deeply skeptical of the effects of a troop increase in Afghanistan certainly had the desired effect as far as the Washington debate was concerned, but they also sure as hell made life very difficult for Karl Eikenberry. This is bound to strain Eikenberry's relationship with Hamid Karzai and the U.S. military.
Within U.S. military circles, expect grumbling about who, exactly, was in charge during the years (2005-2007) in which the war in Afghanistan took a turn for the worse. The answer? Karl Eikenberry, of course. Is that unfair? Absolutely. Sarah Chayes describes what took place in those years as a Pakistani invasion of Afghanistan by proxy, and Eikenberry had no hope of resisting that with his meager resources. But when compared with those of his predecessor and successor -- David Barno and David McKiernan, respectively -- Eikenberry's term in Afghanistan is spoken of in less than glowing terms, and some within the military might start blaming Eikenberry for having helped get us into this mess in the first place and now standing in the way of getting us out.
All of that, though, is minor compared with the problems EIkenberry now faces with the Karzai regime. Last week Michael Semple bluntly stated that the most important dynamic in Afghanistan was the relationship between the "international community" (for which we should read, he said: "United States of America") and the government of Afghanistan. Well how is that going to work now? It's now common knowledge that Karl Eikenberry -- the U.S. ambassador -- thinks you, Hamid Karzai, lead a collection of corrupt and ineffective goons unworthy of further U.S. investment! Whoever leaked these classified cables has cut the knees out from underneath the most important U.S. representative in Kabul!
All of this is to say that Karl Eikenberry -- whatever you think of the man -- got royally screwed by some short-sighted jerks in the 202 area code. The cables had already been deliberated upon by the president and his advisors, but that wasn't enough, so some idiots decided to also make the cables public knowledge. Now whatever U.S. policy goes forward -- counterinsurgency, counter-terror, withdrawal, rape and pillage, whatever -- is going to suffer for the soured relationship between our man in Kabul and the government of Afghanistan.
We have seen the enemy, and it is us.
Update: Or am I wrong? Did he leak his own cables? If so, what a silly thing to do.
Update II: Read the time stamps of these posts. (1, 2) Was Andrew Sullivan reading this blog on an airplane? Seriously, man, you're on a plane: put down the laptop and read a paperback novel like a normal human being!
This is starting to sound like a trashy DC power-play novel.
My money's on him. THIS guy deserves all the accolades that the know-nothings bestowed upon Matthew Hoh, no matter which way this goes. This guy did his rounds and saw that if there is to be any chance that what he sees a crucial policy change could still get made, he had to leak this view. Notice: he hasn't resigned from anything or quit five months into a yearlong assignment. Perhaps he has speeded his departure, but he has given good notice of the reason. If these are his views, then plainly he has no business staying on as Ambassador to Afghanistan while Stanley McChrystal is attempting a counterinsurgency in the country. So this is a flat-out honorable move. THIS guy is squared away. Time everyone else double-checks that they are.
I've got to disagree with you here. Why weren't you similarly incensed about the leaking of GEN McChrystal's assessment? It obviously constrained the President's options -- or at least set him up for substantial criticism from some parts of the political spectrum if he chose a different course of action -- and arguably imperiled our efforts to demand more from the Karzai government by implying future support regardless of reform, legitimacy, or, say, election theft.
If the process is going to be open, let's have it be open. I appreciate that it's a different scenario when you're talking about communications in confidence by the individual who is credentialed to the Afghan government, but let's be serious here: GEN McChrystal, GEN Caldwell, and a number of others are in similarly close contact with their HN counterparts and their opinions carry similar weight. While you could say "yeah, but none of them argued AGAINST escalation or further support for the Karzai government," I'd suggest that this does a great deal to recommend Eikenberry as an honest broker and a useful black hat. Is it such a bad thing if Karzai thinks that an influential individual who has the President's ear doesn't have a lot of faith in the Karzai government's commitment to stamping out corruption or extending security and services to the Afghan populace?
Of course, Karzai is corrupt. Does anyone think he serves as President of Afghanistan for just his official salary? Who in their right mind would take on the risk of death and violence to themselves and their family for just an official salary? At the beginning Karzai negotiated his off-the-books compensation package with the US. He has probably renegotiated to better terms a number of times during the past 7 years. A Karzai initiated renegotiation is probably going on right now, which the US doesn't want to grant. The wailing and gnashing of teeth about Karzai's "ethics" in the MSM is a part of the US negotiation strategy.
In return for whatever he's paid off-the-books, Karzai does what the US wants, most of the time. Obviously someone in the US government/military believes that for what he's paid Karzai should do what the US wants all of the time. As no one knows precisely what he's paid off-the-books, this expectation of 100% reliabilty may be very reasonable.
To leap up for Exum who does not need it, the leak of the commander's assessment was not traced to McChrystal so far as we know. So that at least can't be held against him, or Exum for not finding fault with McChrystal for it. mcChrystal did give an ill-advised speech/Q&A that in my view was problematic on chain-of-command, but certainly not insubordination. It should be noted, Eikenberry has given no speeches about this view, ie the cables are the only thing pressuring the president at this point, not a coordinated media campaign like McChrystal tried in the mold of Petraeus.
But in any case, let's be clear: Eikenberry is a civilian now. A leak might be improper (maybe even illegal, but then maybe the WH declassified and then authorized this leak) on some grounds, but not on chain-of-commands/civil-mil grounds. (Here I've switched to your view, Gulliver.) The question of insubordination isn't just a matter of rank; it is dependent on whose objectives you may be thwarting.
Of course, so far all Exum has done is call this leak 'silly' if it came from Eikenberry himself? Why would that be silly, I wonder?
Mike D. -- To leap up for Exum who does not need it, the leak of the commander's assessment was not traced to McChrystal so far as we know. So that at least can't be held against him, or Exum for not finding fault with McChrystal for it.
You misunderstand me. Ex is critical of whoever leaked Eikenberry's cables for making the ambassador's job more difficult and by implication, imperiling the mission/U.S. objectives in the region. He did not criticize the leaker of the McChrystal report, which arguably did more to constrain the president's option and make life difficult for those who did not agree with the content of that assessment (a group which, it seems clear, included some of GEN McChrystal's political masters).
I'm not asking him to find fault with GEN McChrystal for the assessment becoming public, I'm merely noting that a critical view of this leak in the absence of such criticism on the McChrystal leak could prompt less generous observers to suggest that the reaction is related to one's intepretation of how each leak served to advance or detract from the critic's policy objectives, i.e. this leak is bad because it exposes a senior official's personal view that escalation is not warranted, while the McChrystal leak was good because it pressured the President to adopt an operational approach the emphasized COIN, and an attendant escalation.
Gulliver,
Did he not criticize it generally? I have a hard time believing that, but perhaps you are right, I don't know. I agree with you about the consequences of that leak.
This seems like a fairly obvious, intentional leak in order to put pressure on Karzai. Message: reform or might not be able to sustain the domestic political will to continue helping you.
Andrew,
This is an honest question: why should we care what the relationship is between Karzai and the relevant US players? We (the publics of the ISAF nations) have been told often enough that Karzai is an ineffective, detached leader whose power doesn’t extend beyond Kabul’s city limits. If that’s really true then what does it matter whether or not he likes Ambassador Holbrooke or Ambassador Eikenberry or Gen. McChrystal? Is there some practical effect that this would have on our capability to execute our strategy there? Wouldn’t it be better in many ways to channel aid money and support to leaders at the provincial, district or local level anyway, leaving the Kabul kleptocracy to its own devices?
Paul,
Back in the day, Maliki was considered a corrupt, ineffective, and detached leader in Iraq, but he was our man. Patraeus/Crocker/Odearno stayed on him, and we eventually made progress. We've gotten better at the military side of small wars, but the political side in our COIN theories is still left wanting. Currently, it's more of an art than a science. Bottom line is, for better or worse, we have to work with Karzai, and the personal relationships are key critical in that fight.
I'm starting to lose track of all the leaks, and which leak is a "good" leak, and which leak is a "bad" leak....
(Can one of you please draw some kind of diagram for us "outside the beltway-outside the military" laypersons? A Power Point at the very least?)
"We have to work with Karzai..." No, actually, we don't. Direct rule.
What's stopping us? Oh, right, the legitimate revolutionary aspirations of the Afghan people, whom we have come to liberate from their tyrannous Taliban overlords. And will rise up in a storm of justified popular outrage if we admit that, yes, the United States has conquered and occupied Afghanistan. A fact of which they are, at present, entirely unaware. Sheesh. Can't the 20th century be over already?
Realistically, wouldn't it be better to focus on strengthening political structures at the municipal, clan, and district levels, anyways? Strengthening a the federal government just gives more power over distant communities to people with local (family) loyalties and shaky civil ethics. When the person lives next door and must speak with members of your family every day, his actions are likely to reflect a greater awareness and discretion. If a praxis of civil society can form within the districts, let the intermingling of the valedictorians of this process then establish the political habits of a federal Afghanistan.
Otherwise — and this is more a dire fantasy than a serious assertion — it will simply remain more profitable to those who currently have influence to keep the ISAF mired in a combat zone (providing plausible deniability for widespread heroin production) and funding development (providing capital to invest in heroin production) while seizing bomb making materials (providing fertilizer for heroin production) than it would be to act as responsible leaders. (The situation is only rivaled by that of Iowa, which no matter what we try simply produces more corn.) Realistically, in such a case it would almost be a better idea to corner the market on heroin, purchasing absolutely all the opium and heroin the Afghanis can produce, shouldering near-term competitive cartels out of the marketplace; if it was the sole market maker for heroin, the ISAF would at least have some realistic influence in the region.
To be honest, when I first read the link text I thought it said "Throwing Karzi Under the Bus" and I swiftly clicked with a shaking hand, thinking, "please, please..."
Working with and minimizing Karzai do not have to be mutually exclusive. There are several recent articles advocating a decentralized gov't with increased micro-political focus. They offer a strong counter to the current Taliban focus of good governance on the local level; however, that does not mean we just get rid of Karzai. Look at our own history. Before the Constitution and strong federal gov't, we started with the Articles of Confederation and state (tribe) rule.
Here's the articles:
The Taliban's Political Program, Dan Green, Armed Forces Journal
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/11/the-talibans-political-program/...
One Tribe at a Time, Major Jim Gant, Small Wars Journal
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/10/one-tribe-at-a-time/#c005465
An Alternative Approach for Afghanistan, Major Mehar Omar Khan, Small Wars Journal
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/10/an-alternative-approach-for-af/...
MikeF,
States, even sub-national ones like we have, are not tribes. Important to be clear about that. I do agree with a decentralized, even tribal political strategy in Afghanistan, though we will still need an entity to perform command-and-control of whatever security forces we leave behind.
Is there much support for the "rape and pillage" option of the occupation?
He can help supply the Tajiks and Hazara and lead some "punitivive" expiditions into Pashtunistan to "chastize" some of the restless tribes, and then depart with adequate plunder (likely opium stock); that should put a good face on the whole affair.
My direct understanding from friends at the NSC is that Eikenberry leaked the cables himself ( they believe). Of course, it's in their interest to promulgate that version, so who knows? But perhaps the general is becoming adept at the Washington media game, and learning to use the Washington Post as a means of communicating with his colleagues who otherwise won't listen. Odd that a process can be so typical and dysfunctional at once... but we're getting accustomed to it, aren't we?
MikeD, you're correct. States and tribes is a weak analogy, but my main point was that federalization did not occur for us overnight. Besides that, I think we agree.
MikeF,
I think what you mean is indirect rule. :-)
Yes, Astan is an excellent candidate for indirect rule. Which is not the opposite of direct rule. It is an excellent candidate for both, in fact. Unfortunately, both involve the word "rule," which is quite inconsistent with any pretense of Afghan sovereignty.
Probably the best thing that USG, considering its inherent limitations in the task, could accomplish in Astan is to implement a classic colonial strategy of indirect rule, but do so informally, maintaining Karzai as mayor of Kabul and national puppet/joke. Cromer actually did this quite successfully in Egypt - for Khedive, read Karzai.
The only problem with this is its inherent mendacity. Perhaps a more military way to say it is: the only problem with this is, it's still bullshit. In theory bullshit should not be a problem, but in practice it has a way of creeping back up your ass. It certainly crept up Cromer's. There's not much left of British Egypt now.
If you acknowledge the reality that Astan is under American military occupation and American martial law, and will be until the insurrection is quelled, you will find everything 10 times easier. This doesn't even mean Americans have to be telling every goatherd where his goats can graze. Direct rule and indirect rule go together like ham and cheese. It does mean, however, that if Americans don't like the provincial governor, they can replace him with his cousin - any time, for any reason. Under these terms, you'll have the Waziris eating out of your hand in no time. They are simply the same terms that any strong Afghan ruler, regardless of race, creed, color or gender, would employ.
However, this would apparently constitute some kind of a human-rights violation. So we can't do it. Lesson: any effective technique for colonial government will, sooner or later, come to be viewed as a human-rights violation.
Many generations of imperialist in a prior time learned the lesson that they could not fight London, at least not from Cairo, however insane London got. They cut their losses. So will the military in Afghanistan - it's simply impossible to fight a war with this kind of BS going on. How do you ask a man to be the last one, etc?
Is it a state secret that Karzai is a corrupt incompetent? Who knows who leaked these memos and I'd take "reported comments" from NSC sources with a huge pinch of the proverbial. It's been obvious for weeks there is a strong faction within the admin that wants to pull the plug on Afghanistan and that the president himself is deeply sceptical of the panacaeas being advanced by the military. After all when was the last time an American general, or any general for that matter, sent reports out saying he was going to lose? The Eikenberry flap strengthens my belief were going to see a minimalist approach.
One doubts Eikenberry is too upset about being "thrown under the bus." In fact, as has been mentioned, there is good reason to believe he either made the leak himself or approved of it. The White House has got to like the leak. By demonstrating that not all senior US representatives on the ground agree that a massive infusion of troops is warranted, it strengthens the president's hand and allows him to move more freely. The unfortunate reality is that the president needs help in dealing with what looks very much like a cabal of senior officers, opposition politicians, pundits and thinktank warriors, all intent on miring the US in Afghanistan for many years to come.
Eikenberry has aided the president immensely. He's also done a great service for the nation, particularly if he ends up being instrumental in heading off the train to ruination being urged on us by military factions and Beltway savants. This cannot be good news for Mr. Exum, his friends at CNAS and the rest of the COINdinistas.
Who did leak the McChrystal report? That's where this leaking contest began. I'm betting on someone at CNAS or one of the other think tank warriors.
G.Eikenberry had to go anyway. He didn't arrive in Kabul with any good relations with Karzai to begin with.
Aside from why and who leaked what Eikenberry said, how about what he said?
My impression is that State and USAID are utterly incapable of fielding the numbers of folks that would be necessary to implement the sort of "win/buy friends and build local governance and intolerance of rebels" strategy that the military employed to turn things around in Iraq and seeks to employ in Afghanistan. I've read that he wants a "purely civilian approach" with the State Dept and US AID doing the rebuilding stuff.
Could someone explain what's meant by this? I'm just a layman, not in the military, not in State. But when I see a proposal like this, what I see is there's no way the guy making it could think this is realistic. So basically, he's extending everyone a big middle finger.
You can sort of do the development thing (at this very low level) with troops just as well as you can with civilians. And they provide their own protection.
With civilians, you need troops there for protection anyway, so you're effectively doubling the cost, creating double chains of command. And so forth. And we've got troops with some level of training that'd let us get going. We don't have anything close to the thousands and thousands of civvies that'd be required. Plus, you know, you're asking a bunch of untrained suits to go be targets in a war zone. To top it off, the State Dept's rep for practicality and getting things done isn't exactly top notch. It seems more suited to handling the formal diplomatic world that evolved out of court politics rather than going out and playing Lawrence of Arabia.
Another way to put it is that yes, military has evolved to do things that State should have been doing if we were going by the book. But the military evolved to do it because State was a complete and utter failure at it.
The fact they (State) is obviously still not on the same page only further reinforces the point. Iraq only stopped being a complete disaster when we got State and Defense cooperation and alignment. It appears to me we've not gotten that yet in Afghanistan, and it's going to really hurt us.
At this point I'm despairing in general. A good plan might win the war if followed through, but I don't see any reason to think our political leadership can do that.
As a Tom Barnett Kool Aid drinker when I see a discussion about what State wants to do and what State is able to do combined with what the Army may or may not want to do with what it is forced to do or has to do, I think about Tom's Sys Admin teams and wonder when it will happen.
State should be about building diplomatic bridges not real ones, and while the army corp of engineers does a great job we cannot ask them to go it alone.
The army needs to be free to do what it does best - fighting wars, small or large conventional or unconventional. But they need to know that once they have done the job they get to come home, they don't have to spend time working out who gets what olive grove or who gets to farm what goats where. nor should they have to deal with the infighting of a government that has little or no support.
Colonialism has a bad name in many parts, and rightly so but the idea that a dedicated organization designed to come in and get a country back on track, to manage not govern that space, is worth thinking about.
And just to reference colonization in a personal way. It ain't necessarily so bad. My mother who worked for the WHO talked to a doc she worked with in Tanzania about whether or not Dr Macando disliked the white colonial rulers of times past, and whether the white mans burden was justified. he said this - They came and the ruled, and because of it I , unlike my parents, no longer live in a mud house with cattle , I work in a country that has access to modern medial practices and a CAT scan machine I am glad that you all fucked off, but I'm grateful that you came in the first place.
I'd love to have that conversation with someone out side Kabul years from now.
The progression of the occupation in afghanistan - ANY occupation of afghanistan - is as predictable as the progression of an invasion of Russia by land from the west. We've all seen this movie before, and it's going to have the same third and fourth reels as it did every other time we watched it.
Yes, things fell apart by about years four or five. That's what always happens. It's no more the fault of any particular strategy or general than is the snow falling on the steppes in winter.
Visitor - there's a first time for everything. This just isn't it, I fear.
David Sutton - a fascinating literary perspective of decolonialization from the other side, similar to that of Dr. Macando, is provided by the Bengali writer Nirad Chaudhuri. Chaudhuri, who amazingly survived until 1999, was the private secretary of Indian nationalist leader Sarat Bose - brother of Subhas Chandra. He was also one of the great English prose writers of the century, surely one of the top few from India. His memoir of the period - Thy Hand, Great Anarch - is absolutely essential.
20th-century ethnic nationalism was a strange folie-a-deux between indigenous elites and nascent aidocrats. Behind its two-dimensional propaganda lies a much more interesting, and much more understandable, sequence of events.
The claim that Amb. Eikenberry leaked the cables is ridiculous. He has spent several months trying to build a productive personal relationship with President Karzai. Why would he wreck this effort by such an action?
This practice of leaking classified documents to score points in the 202 area code policy battles is not only childish, it also does demonstrable damage to our ability to conduct foreign policy overseas. One of these days it's going to come back and bite us in our rear ends by contributing to some disaster.
The international community needs a serious attitude adjustment on how it views President Karzai and the Afghan Government. Looking for a client rather than a partner is a recipe for defeat in a COIN battle. Continued bashing of President Karzai does nothing to strengthen the Afghan Government. Trotting him out to pose with Senator Kerry to announce agreement on a second election round did nothing to strengthen his legitimacy with the Afghan people, the only thing missing from that scene was a sign around President Karzai's neck titled "lackey of the foreigners." At the very least the international community should have the honesty to admit that the aim in pushing for a second round was to burnish President Karzai's legitimacy with the international community, not the Afghan people. For all of his faults, there is no obvious alternative to President Karzai.
The idea of working around President Karzai and dealing directly with officials at the provincial and district levels has two obvious drawbacks. The first is that such efforts, if successful, serve to undermine the Afghan Government's credibility and legitimacy. The second is that it demonstrates more than a little hubris to think that foreigners can best the Afghan Government, local power brokers, and other Afghan actors in the political power struggles at the subnational levels.
Looking for a client rather than a partner is a recipe for defeat in a COIN battle.
Ya know, for some of us outside the 202 area code, it's not a question of what we look for. It's a question of what we see. When we look, we prefer to at least start by looking at.
How could Karzai possibly be anything but a client? Kabul is militarily dependent on USG, financially dependent on USG, and for all I know pharmaceutically dependent on USG. Since you're in the political cone, you must know what a client state is! Did you, or did you not, go to Georgetown? If this is not a client state - what is? If Kabul is USG's partner, what was Bulgaria to the USSR? A cherished elder brother? Jesus Mary mother of God, I've never heard such a bald-faced defense of mendacity. You guys in Foggy Bottom have been dissembling your way to world domination for so long, you think you can turn black into white just by calling it so.
DOS can look for Karzai to be a purple elephant if it wants. That will not make him anything but what he is. If you have some plan to make him anything but, I'm sure both the Post and Exum are all ears!
Comment by Paul on November 12, 2009 - 12:37pm
Karzai matters, a lot. He is the commander of the ANA, ANP, and all civilian employees of the GIRoA. He has considerable popular support among Afghans, as well as support from Iran, the UN, Russia, China, Afghanistan's northern neighbors, and India. Karzai is also a capable politician who is more competent at running Afghanistan than many think. Convincing Ishmael Khan, Fahim, Dostum, Hazara Shia, and prominent Pashtun tribes to endorse him is not joke.
Just to take the ANA and ANP, these are very important and powerful institutions. Without Karzai, there cannot be an effective COIN strategy. McChyrstal's strategy relies heavily on persuading the ANA and ANP to jointly execute a COIN strategy with ISAF (and OEF.)
The objective in the COIN campaign is to get the Afghan people to support the government over the insurgents. The dilemma that the international community faces concerns the manner in which support for the government can be fostered. Anyone who deals with Afghans understands that they are proud people who resist pressure; publicly challenging them is counterproductive because it becomes a question of honor. Public criticisms of the Afghan Government and its officials also serve to weaken the Afghan Government's legitimacy. In dealing with President Karzai, the best approach, I believe, is to earn his trust and confidence in order to persuade him that many of the international community's objectives are also in his own interest. Pressure, if needed, should be applied privately, not publicly. The United States and other members of the international community have domestic political requirements that must be fulfilled in order to sustain popular support for assistance to Afghanistan but all should keep in mind that the same holds true for President Karzai and the Afghan Government. There should be a happy medium where everyone can satisfy their political requirements without anyone being undercut.
Ambassador Eikenberry is an intelligent man with extensive experience in Afghanistan. He understands the above facts and likely has a strategy for engagement with President Karzai. Leaking his assessments of the situation in Afghanistan only serve to make his job more difficult.
when presidents travel they are out of the loop for roughly 8 to 12 hours, and they have to serve deadline pressures for news agencies according to several different schedules. plus, the most in-the-loop correspondents are either on the big white shark plane with him or following behind in pedal-operated biplanes painted to resemble pilot fish.
for this reason stories with some resilience are left behind to feed either the DC editors going forward into the travel day, so that they can put up front-page stories using local reporters and sources, or so that television broadcasts on the East Coast have something besides "president expected to land in Eastern Capital soon, talks with local leaders on the agenda" as their only story.
because national morning TV shows fill up their air time between soap and erectile dysfunction commercials with live shots. and it's cheaper and easier to go to a live shot in the DC studio or on the lawn of the White House than it is to keep the Tokyo corro and camera team on stand-by at 3 am local time.
today we have two such stories. one is eikenberry's leaked cables, the other is craig's self-removal as white house counsel. both serve to further policy agendas and feed the media. likely they were both known and planned for some time and then held until the news cycles just ahead of obama's departure.
i can't speak to the ideology of either, just the tactics. just take a look at the above-the-fold stories in the major broadsheets today, as well as the op-eds. op-eds take at least 24 hours to gel, and are usually planned a week in advance. late-breaking news can be added to the first three or four paragraphs without substantively altering the conclusions.
then, when you get done being amazed at my massive correctitude and amazing powers of spoon-bending, go watch all the morning shows at the top of the hour and at the half. when they break to an earpiece-wearing haircut mouthing breathlessly and appearing way too earnest, think of me.
Anand is right: the ANSF ROEs are written and enforced by Karzai (the "12 rules"). If we do not have his full and complete cooperation, transfer of lead security responsibility to Afghans in any part of the country would barely be conceivable. He has also repeatedly shown he can make things very awkward in SOF or drone strike situations where the West goes it alone, too.
It's going to be extremely hard to increase Afghan support for the central state or effectiveness of any central institutions through undermining their titular leader, whether that be through whispering about his corruption or "empowering the provinces/tribes/etc."
The United States and other members of the international community have domestic political requirements that must be fulfilled in order to sustain popular support for assistance to Afghanistan but all should keep in mind that the same holds true for President Karzai and the Afghan Government.
In other words: if Americans knew what a clusterf*ck Astan was, they would kill the program. If Afghans knew what a scoundrel Karzai was, they would kill Karzai. Therefore, it is important that we continue to lie.
Too bad! Americans are figuring out what a cluster*ck Astan is. Afghans know what a scoundrel Karzai is. Moreover, lying to foreigners is a diplomat's job. Lying to Americans is not. Worse, you are not even just lying to Americans - you are proposing that USG, as a regular matter of operations, lie to itself - by employing Orwellian terminology such as "partner" - in order to get through the day without its brain exploding from sheer contradiction.
Normally I find government by leak despicable, but I think Americans should appreciate the service of whoever leaked the Eikenberry memos. That said, the argument that it can't have been Eikenberry strikes me as compelling.
Mencius Moldbug, do you have evidence that Karzai is any worse a "scoundrel" than the elected leader of many other countries around the world? I think we should be careful about using exaggerated unflattering terms. Karzai isn't as bad or incompetent as you describe him. Many Afghan Pashtuns still support him and don't appreciate uppity foreigners insulting their elected leader. I say this as someone who thought that the Afghans would have been better off if Karzai lost his bid for reelection in 2009 (to Abdullah) and 2004 (to Yunus Qanuni.)
anan,
No - Karzai is only a scoundrel in American terms. Being an American, I feel free to refer to him as a scoundrel. If I were an Afghan, my fear would be that he is weak. Being weak in Afghanistan is much worse than being a scoundrel in America. Historically, America has had many scoundrels in government. Afghanistan has not had many pussies in government.
Of course, his weakness may not be a personal quality - it is an inherent result of his American-created position. A strong leader, nonetheless, might overcome this obstacle. Or not. It is hard to tell. Certainly, when we decided that we would not let Karzai use force to impose his personal will on Afghanistan, we denied him any chance to be a true ruler of that country. If the puppet had muscles, who knows what it might accomplish? But it has no muscles, and will never have any. America does not believe in muscle.
For an appropriate Afghan leader with an appropriate Afghan relationship with a foreign sponsor, try Abdur Rahman. Note that the Victorian relationship with Abdur Rahman achieved all the goals for Britain that the US could possibly have for Afghanistan: a united country with a strong government whose attentions are restricted to domestic affairs. Britain's means for achieving this end could not possibly be more different from our own methods today.
I'm quite confident that by Victorian standards, Abdur Rahman was a scoundrel as well. He was a tough scoundrel, however. And when the British wished to sponsor the regime of an Abdur Rahman, they had an established political, bureaucratic, and intellectual framework by which they could do so. This, in a word, was imperialism. Foggy Bottom has no such thing. Like the Victorians, it is institutionally good at going around the world stirring up anarchy and revolution, but unlike the Victorians it is not institutionally good at holding the territories it conquers by this means. It has only half the imperial apparatus - the wrong half.
Never in the history of Afghanistan has anyone governed that people by consent, American style. They have always been governed by the man who proved he was the strongest. They surrendered to America in 2001 because America proved herself the strongest. They are rebelling today because America has revealed her true weakness, just as Osama described. They are betting on the strong horse, as they always have and always will.
When USG and/or its Afghan puppets adopt the language of PC-COIN and beg for the consent of the Afghan people, we says to them: you are strong, and we are humble. Please, won't you support us? This is the way to earn not their support, but their contempt. "Publicly challenging" the Afghans never works, not because the Afghans "are a proud people," but because when USG "publicly challenges" their own clients it is because the relationship is broken - the Americans are out of control and can think of nothing else to do. This is what they do right before they lose. Then, they lose.
When a man is losing, the best thing for his enemies to do is to play along with him. Of course the Afghans complain about every trivial insult! We expect them to complain. We feel they have a right to complain. Why on earth would they not complain? If we actually compelled them to comply, as any true Afghan leadership would, they would do that also. The Afghan is above all a realist - in many ways, it is he who should be educating us.
The Afghans are indeed a proud people. Behaving with pride and honor is the way to earn their respect and feudal submission. George Casey - wrong. Reginald Dyer - right. The Victorians understood the Afghans and were able to manage them, because the Victorian imperialist classes retained a surviving aristocratic honor culture. Thus, they understood and were able to practice PI-COIN, and thus insurgency was seldom a significant problem for them.
Such a culture still exists in the US military, but not within its political and intellectual leadership. This is why we make the same mistakes over and over again, and will almost certainly fail this time around. Perhaps future exercises in PC-COIN could be conducted in a country more culturally congenial to government by consent - Sweden, perhaps, or the Netherlands. I'd enlist.
Here, from Britannica via Wikipedia, is Abdur Rahman's approach to PI-COIN:
From the end of 1888, the Amir spent eighteen months in his northern provinces bordering upon the Oxus, where he was engaged in pacifying the country that had been disturbed by revolts, and in punishing with a heavy hand all who were known or suspected to have taken any part in rebellion.
Needless to say, hell will freeze over before Washington dares to punish an Afghan for the mere act of rebelling against it. And one must also admire that "known or suspected." If all those "known or suspected" are to be punished, the sensible Afghan will certainly be much less tempted to play both sides of the game! Again, the contrast with PC-COIN could not be more great. Little wonder one approach works and the other doesn't.
It's totally beyond me how those who support this COIN boondoggle in Afghanistan somehow believe that by merely wishing Karzai to be a suitable "partner," it will be so. Although rarely ever a good idea, one can conceive of some circumstances where a COIN approach just might yield some dividends. Having a weak, corrupt "partner" leading the client state would not seem to be one of those circumstances. How does one "win hearts and minds" when one is viewed as the button man for a "leader" despised and distrusted by a majority of the citizenry?
And you COINdinistas want to commit vast amounts of American treasure and sacrifice the lives of numerous young Americans (and NATO allies) for what? For Karzai? Show the American people where this guy is worth our kids' lives and our treasure. Better yet, show Barack Obama, because it looks as if he's on to your game.
The road to the people lies through the leadership. If you can't reach the leadership, you can't reach the people. Eikenberry knows this. And all of the wishing and hoping on the part of State Department bureaucrats and think tank warriors does nothing to change reality.
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