Afghanistan Nation Building

The title of this post is wrong.  Afghanistan has never been and will never be a nation except in the short-lived case of control by a ruthless local chief who happens to have, for an instant in time, overwhelming force backed by financial deals and power sharing.  He too shall pass.

It is still a strange turn of events that led the US from its principal, strategic reason for striking in the first place - severely damaging Al Qaida  and denying it and other jihadist groups from establishing a base in the future. In that, the US policy has succeeded. Nation building has nothing to do with it and still does not - or at least should not.

Once US military forces are withdrawn, the infighting will begin again with local forces manipulated by Russia, Pakistan, India and Iran.  In January I suggested that the best policy for the US was withdrawal of most combat troops and a reversion to tactics that reflected the only legitimate and achievable US strategic objective - preventing the use of Afghanistan as a base for terror operations and so degrading and destroying the central command of Al Qaida that it would be unable to mount any trans-national operations. The latter has been achieved and can be maintained through the use of much smaller, quickly deployed ground units and air strikes. Instead, a surge was initiated to defeat the Taliban and create a nation around President Karzai. This is simply not going to succeed.

The US will need to find a political solution and leave with grace - unlike the English and Russians before them. Afghanistan is simply not worth the candle.

Iran Again

The chattering classes in Washington and Europe have been quiet of late regarding Iran, particularly in light of the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq - save for the 50,000 or so that remain.  But in light of the new sanctions imposed, what is being planned in response to the continued intransigence of the Iranian government? Frankly, anyone outside the White House, Pentagon and CIA who says they know, doesn't. 

The US foreign policy of force first, talking later, has produced a profound imbalance in the Middle East. Bush dismantled Iraq - the only power capable of presenting a problem to Tehran. The hand wringing over potential Iranian nuclear capability and the threat to Israel remains in full view and is dutifully reported by a compliant media, particularly in the US.  That is not the problem.

The media conveniently forgets that Iran has a significant, well trained military force capable of stirring the pot in the region. The country that is most concerned is not Israel. It is Saudi Arabia. And it is about oil.  Iran's trump card is not nuclear, it is messing about in the Persian Gulf.  So, aside from the fact that even a nuclear armed Iran would not pose a threat to the US, disrupting oil supplies would. 

Let's assume that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon next Saturday.  If an attack were launched to destroy all its nuclear facilities, and succeeded (far from a certainty) - so what?  The loss would be annoying for Iran, but still would leave it capable of disrupting oil flows, destabilizing Iraq completely and interfering with activities of NATO in Afghanistan.  This is not a nice scenario and which is why I dismiss all the talk about bombing Iran and taking out its nuclear facilities. 

Sanctions are ineffective and bombing would collapse the economies of the world as oil vanished  from the Persian Gulf.  Time to find a different way to get the attention of Tehran in a way that makes it reconsider its policies.

Afghanistan II 1/2

With the turn of events in the second round of elections in Afghanistan, I've postponed a post on the wider issues surrounding the US/Europe/Russia/Israel linkages that significantly tie the hands of US policy makers. There will be no second round - one person running does not an election make.

Let's not characterize this as anything other than it is - a disaster. Sorry Hillary - it changes everything. With the imminent dispatch of another 14,000 troops to Afghanistan, a policy must be articulated by the US administration and an exit strategy developed. Otherwise, there is no reason to be in Afghanistan supporting President Karzai - the Mayor of Kabul.