The Wrong War

President O announced/leaked that America's commitment to the War in Afghanistan is going to require a long term commitment of up to 10 years and more troops. This is feeling more and more like the last Democrat war: Vietnam. Once again, we are fighting a guerrilla war in a large country in which it is difficult to identify the enemy from the friendlies with no strategic importance.

We can argue about the "lesson from Vietnam". There are military lessons about fighting guerrilla wars etc. But there are political lessons as well, and this is where the Obama decisions are highly questionable. Vietnam had no strategic importance, and neither does Afghanistan. Militarily we are fighting to defend what? A bunch of drug dealers and warlords. This is nation building at its absolute worse. We should have defined our military goals as "Prevent Al Queda from using Afghanistan as a safe haven." That aim has been accomplished. With minimal diplomatic effort, we could get the right to continue to monitor Al Queda activity in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. If we see evidence of one training camp, we can send in the drones.

How did President Obama get into this mess. As with anything involving the President, the answer is "Politics". For electoral purposes, Obama wanted to advocate a speedy withdrawal from Iraq. but that would leave him subject to the charge that he was "soft" on defense. So he had to find a war to support and latched on to Afghanistan. But this is precisely the opposite result if we were to apply elementary logic to the analysis.

For all its problems, Iraq is of strategic importance. We can all question the logic of attacking Iraq. One problem that has not been discussed is that Saddam was the bulwark against the Shia tide in the Middle East, especially against Iran. Yes, American foreign policy is replete with bad bedfellows (e.g., Vietnam) and that is an uncomfortable position to be in. But clearly Saddam was aligned with our goal of checking the drift of the Middle East to the tide of Shia-ism. Now we are handing that job to a weak Shiite dominated Iraqi government. this is a recipe for disaster. Of course, the Iraqi government and their Iranian allies are anxious for the US to withdraw!!

But Afghanistan has no strategic importance. It is the crossroads to nowhere. Its only importance was the sheltering of Al Queda and it will be a long time before they come into the open again. Unfortunately, thanks to Bill Clinton and his foreign policy of weakness, we missed our chance to take them out in the Sudan and in Afghanistan. But at this point, the mission in Afghanistan is accomplished.