16 Years and Still Counting: Afghanistan, US and The Never-Ending War

October 7, 2017 marked the 16th anniversary of US direct intervention in Afghanistan in the aftermath of attacks perpetrated by the terrorist group Al Qaeda on 9/11/2001. Osama Bin Laden used the failed state of Afghanistan (under the control of the Taliban) to hatch the plan of attack on the twin towers in New York and the Pentagon. The US objective at the time, under the banner of the global war on terror, was to dismantle Al Qaeda and bring its leaders to face justice. We were able to rout the Taliban and Al Qaeda in a rapid manner over the course of several days. We accomplished this blitzkrieg with our overwhelming airpower, Special Forces and the participation of militias mostly from the Northern Alliance warlords.

Rank and file Afghans were overjoyed, coming out in the streets, many shaving off the beards imposed on them by the Taliban as a religious edict. People believed that the US led intervention, followed by the participation of some fifty other countries, was a ticket for Afghanistan to put its devastating troubles of the prior twenty years behind it. But what ensued dashed these hopes and was instrumental in a resurgent Taliban insurgency, active again by 2006. As the perceived or actual king maker of Afghanistan, the US gave the warlords and their militias legitimacy instead of pressuring the Afghan leaders to clean house and marginalizing them. The warlords and their militias who eventually became the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) reinstituted the culture of impunity and corruption. As leaders and members of the Government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) they institutionalized corruption and lawlessness. ANSF was seen again not as protectors of the people, but predators preying on peoples property, money and helpless sons and daughters. This is the narrative that the Taliban have used so successfully to regain strength.

I made two trips to Afghanistan this summer and what I saw, after sixteen years of our presence there, was very discouraging to say least. The Afghan government bureaucracy is still rife with corruption and it is disorganized and inefficient. Poverty, drug use and other social ills plague the population at large. Warlords and other strongmen, including high level government officials, roam the ever traffic choked streets of Kabul in armed convoys. They have no regard for ordinary people. I watched a report in horror on Tolo Television which showed strongmen beating a taxi driver bloody. The drivers apparent crime was that he wasnt able to get out of their way quickly enough. The Taliban, Islamic State in Khorasan (Islamic State in Afghanistan), and other terrorist groups continue to expand their presence and carry out spectacular and deadly attacks.

The Afghan National Unity Government (NUG) has been in power for 3 years now and is as divided as ever. It has done little to rein in the culture of impunity and bring about other reforms necessary to stabilize the country. The Afghan president Ashraf Ghani won a bitterly contested and fraudulent election in 2014 with the help of Dostum, a notorious Northern Alliance warlord. Dostum was rewarded by being appointed as the first vice president. Ghani was forced to share power with his opponent Abdullah Abdullah, who is serving in a precarious post as the chief executive in the NUG. This power sharing, full of suspicion and devoid of a goal for the national good, has contributed to further sectarianism. Ghani, a Pashtun, has filled most of his staff jobs with Pashtuns. At the same time Abdullah, not to be outdone by his rival Ghani, has been busy appointing personnel from the ranks of the Tajiks. This modus operandi does nothing to heal the divisions created by years of internal strife.

The Trump administration finally announced its Afghanistan policy in August 2017, which was short on specifics. President Trump committed to increasing the number of US troops in Afghanistan and at the same time announced that there will not be a blank check for the American engagement in Afghanistan. This ambiguous pronouncement is an indication that Mr. Trump has no silver bullet to bring Americas longest war to an end. Trump has criticized the failed policies of his predecessor, but sending more troops is no different than the previous failed policies. The only departure from the past three past years, however, is a change in the combat engagement. The revised rule allows the US forces to directly attack Taliban and other groups. This has led to a significant increase in bombings. Last month the US led coalition dropped 751 bombs in Afghanistan, a seven year high.

Based on experience, more bombings and 3000 to 4000 more troops will not tip the balance in favor of the Afghan government or the US, its main supporter. The US and its coalition partners had over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan when the Taliban became resurgent beginning in 2006 - 2007. The Taliban have influence over or hold more territory now than in 2001. Therefore, it is inconceivable that the Trump Afghan doctrine will rein in the Taliban by force. What Mr. Trump announced is neither a strategy nor anything new.

A way forward for Afghanistan would be to pressure Pakistan to stop harboring the Taliban and bring the regional stake holders to the table. But, most importantly, Afghan leadership needs to clean house and bring about reforms so that people support the government and give it legitimacy from the bottom up.

Not holding the Afghan leadership accountable to discharge its responsibility will continue to negate the ongoing US investment in terms of blood and treasure. Afghanistan is not Germany or South Korea where we had had a presence for decades. Those countries did not have a resurgent insurgency, the governments were not made up of former warlords concerned about their own interests, and they still had educated citizens to build in the case of Korea and rebuild in the case of Germany. We helped, but our help was not wasted.