If Canadians want to teach their neighbours down south a lesson on smart, successful foreign policy, Afghanistan presents a welcome opportunity. By increasing troops to combat al-Qaeda and the Taliban’s resurgence before the country teeters on the brink of collapse, as happened in Iraq in 2006, we can humble Americans with our willingness to adjust to environmental changes in a timely fashion. That such an underrated ability could be witnessed is a fundamental lesson to be taken from the near-tragic American occupation of Iraq.
In arguing for a “surge” in Afghanistan, we must provide some context. In 2006, Iraq was suffering from attacks on all fronts. Shiite and Sunni internecine warfare grew so prevalent that a civil war was predicted to be imminent. Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia was relentless in its inflammatory acts, dealing bloodshed to all Iraqi factions and heightening tensions in an already strained environment. By early 2007, with Baghdad lost to factions and insurgents, it was clear that the calls from various dissenting generals and Republican senators for a larger post-war force had been correct all along.
The premise of the surge was that counterinsurgency requires sustained security. When Robert Kagan and Jack Keane developed the policy at the American Enterprise Institute and argued for it in various publications, they made it clear that providing a safe environment was key: it is only when civilians feel safe that they are able to provide the information necessary to root out insurgent hideouts. Likewise, only when nascent police forces feel they have enough backup can they be willing to follow through on their duties to protect. The American mission in Iraq demonstrated that army forces could take out terrorist strongholds with ease, but the final two components of their “clear, hold, and build” strategy failed to materialize. “Holding and “building” were never ensured because the lack of total troop numbers meant that American forces had to move on to the next hot spot in the country before they could stay long enough to assuage the civilian population and build local facilities for reconstruction. Thus, in due time, once-pacified strongholds were re-infiltrated by al-Qaeda operatives or factional insurgents.
With the increase of 32,000 troops, American forces could follow through on the “hold” and “build” portions of their operations. Instead of leaving once enemy forces were rooted, the army placed enough troops to “hold” a given city for the long term. With the aid of the Americans, each pacified city was able to subsequently rebuild and restore normalcy. By now, the results have been positive. Sunni militants have turned on their al-Qaeda collaborators and violence has fallen to 2004 levels.
In Afghanistan, we have a similar problem on a much smaller scale. The issue is less about security breakdown, instead resting on a lack of military progress. As The Economist reported, the primary danger in Afghanistan is “that the war will settle into a stalemate, one in which the Taliban controls much of the countryside in the Pushtun belt and Mr. Karzai’s government runs the rest.”
More troops would allow the multinational mission in Afghanistan to focus on Operation Enduring Freedom’s task of hunting out al-Qaeda along the Pakistani border and the International Security Assistance Force’s efforts to attend to humanitarian and reconstruction needs. It would also increase the likelihood of sustained success, just as in Iraq, halting the downward spiral of public opinion regarding the war in most of the countries involved.
Some say that the most pressing issue is political stagnation. This is due to the lack of credibility that president Hamid Karzai commands. While more troops will not fix endemic corruption or a lack of will among politicians to make deals with Pushtuns, government credibility can be bolstered when security and stability are extended to all parts of the country. In Iraq, one overlooked aspect of the surge was its theoretical implication that without security, political power would shift from democratically elected leaders to factional and sectarian war leaders. Since the surge and the security that came with it, the White House has now reported that 15 of 18 benchmarks have been met, most concerned with political reconciliation. In the beginning, only 3 of 18 benchmarks had been achieved.
One has to wonder if the troop increases in Iraq came too late. Those who believe that the future security and stability of millions of Afghani civilians living in an infant democracy is worth fighting for should act quickly to prevent mistakes in Iraq from repeating themselves. Instead of drifting along the course of attrition and prolonged failure, Canada should revitalize its mission in Afghanistan and make an effort to increase the number of troops so that success can be attained.
