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Newsweek Magazine recently posed the question: will Afghanistan be Barack Obama’s Vietnam War? During the years of the Bush Administration, the Democrats in the U.S. Congress insisted that Iraq was the wrong war, and U.S. policy should emphasize winning the war in Afghanistan. In his recent interview with CBC, President Obama said that the war in Afghanistan could still be won, but that it would take much more than additional troops in the field to do so. During his campaign for the nomination, Obama pledged that if elected he would expand the war across the border into Pakistan.
The roots of U.S. Afghan policy
U.S. geopolitical strategy in the region was clearly set forth by President Jimmy Carter in January 1980. The United States would use whatever force was necessary to preserve its control over the oil resources of the Persian Gulf as well as its supply routes. This served as the rationale for the major intervention in the Afghan civil war between 1978 and 1992. The presence of armed forces from the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and the attempt to created a leftist regimes there, were deemed to be a major threat to U.S. domination of the Middle East region.
This basic strategy was modified in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the discovery of oil and gas in the Caspian Sea basin. The American Petroleum Institute declared that it was necessary for the U.S. government to support the development of the Caspian Sea petroleum resources by U.S. and other western oil corporations, seen to be the last major pool of undeveloped petroleum resources.
The Carter Doctrine was modified to include the goals of the development of these new resources plus transportation routes which would bypass Russia and Iran. Pipelines would be built from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea. The U.S. government then gave support to the plans of the Union Oil Company of California (UNOCAL) and the Central Asia Gas and Pipeline Consortium (CentGas).
However, the Islamist forces that the U.S. had backed were unable to construct a stable government after the collapse of the Soviet-backed regime in 1992. They were constantly at war with each other. The pipelines were planned and agreements were negotiated. But construction could not begin.
Thus in 1994 UNOCAL and the U.S. government both shifted their support to the Pashtun rebellion known as the Taliban. By 1996 they had driven the Islamist forces out of Kabul and seized power. The new Taliban government was welcomed by both UNOCAL and the U.S. government. But the Taliban’s even more radical version of Islam shocked the world and undermined this political solution.
From 1997 through July 2001 the U.S. government actively supported the efforts by the United Nations to broaden and change the Afghan government. The relatively unknown U.N. Six Plus Two negotiations, involving the six countries which bordered on Afghanistan plus the United States and Russia, sought an agreement where the Afghan government would be broadened into a more national coalition, increased financial aid would be forthcoming, and the pipelines would be built. When these negotiations broke down again in July 2001, the Bush administration threw in the towel and told delegates at the meeting that the alternative would come by mid-October 2001: regime change.
The post-Taliban regime
Since the U.S. government overthrew the Taliban regime and installed a new puppet government in Afghanistan, the key geopolitical goals have not changed. A new pipeline agreement was signed. The U.S. government has pushed hard to develop alternative pipelines to Europe, bypassing Russia. They have also put a high priority on isolating Russia, tying its former Soviet-era allies to NATO and the west and establishing military bases around its borders.
It is hard to see how the Obama Administration can change this well developed overall U.S. geopolitical strategy. Furthermore, the group of policy makers Obama has chosen are all well known for strong pro-militarist positions. Vice President Joe Biden, formerly the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, supported a war on Iraq before George W. Bush was elected. Hilary Clinton was a leading hawk in the Senate. Robert Gates has demonstrated his commitment to war in Afghanistan over several administrations. Richard Holbrooke, the President’s Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, is well known for his vigorous support of the Clinton Administration’s wars in former Yugoslavia. Obama then chose Lt.-Gen. Karl Eikenberry to be his Ambassador to Afghanistan.
No sooner did Obama take office than he authorized aerial attacks in Pakistan by Predator Drones based in Afghanistan. As always, civilians were killed. On the eve of his visit to Canada,. Obama ordered the deployment of 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. This is fully consistent with pledges he made during the election process. But this is not the political direction of a peace president.
Bumps in the road for the Obama
There are some problems facing the new administration. A recent Financial Times-Harris public opinion poll has shown that 46% of Americans oppose a surge of troops in Afghanistan with only 30% in support. How long will it take before this opposition becomes vocal?
The biggest problem for the Obama administration will be the enormous government debt being accumulated in efforts to prop up the insolvent banks and try to restart the economy. The federal government’s budget deficit in 2008 was $445 billion, the largest ever. It is expected to be $1.3 trillion in 2009. Dennis C. Blair, the new Director of National Intelligence, stated on Feb 4 that the economic crisis is the greatest threat to U.S. national security. He fears it will further undermine the ability of NATO allies to continue to back the U.S. project in Afghanistan.
Support for the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai and the presence of NATO in Afghanistan continues to drop. The BBC/ABC/ARD poll of Feb 10 shows that 79% of Afghans believe that aerial strikes by NATO forces are unacceptable. Only 37% of Afghans polled say there is strong support in their local area for the presence of NATO. And 64% support a negotiated settlement with the Taliban.
The U.S. government is also in deep trouble in Pakistan, where there is very strong opposition to the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. President Asif Ali Zardari, backed by the U.S. government, has the support of only 18% in recent public opinion polls. The majority favour a negotiated settlement with the Pakistan Taliban and the Islamists. There is very strong opposition to the U.S. policy of aerial attacks on suspected militants in Pakistan from the drones based in Afghanistan. The Pakistan “coalition government” is very weak and can hardly function because of many divisions. Pakistan’s economy is in a state of collapse.
The alternative is deemed to be unacceptable
The obvious solution for the Obama government is to accept the proposal of the Shanghai Co-operation Organization, led by Russia and China, and hold a regional conference to settle the Afghan civil war. This has been formally proposed to NATO but consideration has been blocked by the U.S. government. The proposal has the support of the Karzai government. But President Obama would have to surrender historic U. S. geopolitical goals in the area. That is why commentators in the USA are suggesting that Afghanistan may well be Obama’s Vietnam War.
If the Canadian government really wanted to do something to help its U.S. neighbour and its popular president, it would pull out of its military role in Afghanistan and take the lead in actively promoting a regional peace settlement for Afghanistan. That is what the Afghan people want more than anything else. I feel certain that such a change in policy would have far reaching support in Canada.
John W. Warnock is author of Creating a Failed State: the US and Canada in Afghanistan. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2008.
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