Obama, Afghanistan and the failure of American strategy.
Pivoting off of the revelation that the U.S. had been aware for years that Pakistan was willing to kill U.S. troops and foment instability in Afghanistan to pursue its interests, Michael Cohen wonders how the administration could have still doubled down in Afghanistan:
One thing we've seen repeatedly in regard to the war in Afghanistan is that Pakistan will, even at the risk of eroding their alliance with the United States, aggressively pursue its interests in Afghanistan - and yet the US strategy for Afghanistan has been based, in part, on the notion that Islamabad would shift its strategic calculus at the urging of US officials (and the carrot of foreign assistance). Two years later we're seeing the singular foolish [sic] of that strategy - but again it should have been evident back then. Rather than trying to get Pakistan to act against its interests the United States should have been looking to put in place a strategy that melded with Pakistan's strategic calculus regarding Afghanistan. We're today reaping the ill-rewards of that approach.
What's even more surreal about this whole episode is that many of the advocates of the Afghanistan surge - including Frederick Kagan and Stephen Biddle - insisted that one of the reasons more American lives and money had to be put at risk in Afghanistan was to - wait for it - protect Pakistan! They saw the Taliban and the instability they caused as a threat to Pakistan when in reality - and as was evident at the time - Pakistan was the architect of this instability and was using it toward their own ends. In other words, the surge boosters completely misread the strategic dynamic.
Like Cohen, I am trying hard to understand the administration's Afghanistan policy - is it being driven by wishful thinking, political cowardice, sheer incompetence or is it just an inability on my part to see the big picture (where things are actually better than they appear). I'm open to any of those interpretations at this point...
