Ashes to Ashes, Funk to Funky

by Eric Martin

Max Bergmann seeks to challenge the prevailing conventional wisdom that, to use his phrasing, "Afghanistan is harder than Iraq."  Part of the problem with Bergmann's piece is that he doesn't really describe what exactly it is that would be harder - or just as hard.  It depends on what his definition of "is" is.

In the piece, Bergmann explains that one of the aspects of the situation that will make our mission in Afghanistan easier to achieve is that there are "lower expectations" - presumably, in terms of the ultimate strategic objectives.  So if his point is that because we hope to achieve less, andthus our missions are somehow comparable in difficulty, that argument might past muster, but it would also assume much about the respective missions.

For example, some leading foreign policy experts at the CNAS think tank have compiled a rather ambitious set of policy goals that include putting a halt to the opium trade, eradicating safe havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and building up Afghan (and Pakistani) state institutions.  As David Kilcullen put it before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February:

We need to do four things – what we might call “essential strategic tasks” – to succeed in Afghanistan. We need to prevent the re-emergence of an Al Qaeda sanctuary that could lead to another 9/11. We need to protect Afghanistan from a range of security threats including the Taliban insurgency, terrorism, narcotics, misrule and corruption. We need to build sustainable and accountable state institutions (at the central, provincial and local level) and a resilient civil society. Then we can begin a phased hand-off to Afghan institutions that can survive without permanent international assistance. We might summarize this approach as “Prevent, Protect, Build, Hand-Off”.   

Does Bergmann think achieving that would only be just as hard or easier than what we've achieved in Iraq?  If he is operating from "lower expectation," he has a stronger argument as to difficulty, but then those lowered expectations should be spelled out and he should acknowledge that many people making the argument that "Afghanistan will be harder" are commenting on the mission as previously stated and commonly understood.

The first part of Bergmann's analysis basically focuses on the fact that getting Iraq to the point that it is today was also hard - but it should be noted that even in today's Iraq hundreds of Iraqis are still dying each month in political violence, as are dozens of coalition troops, even if those numbers represent an improvement.  Along these lines, Bergmann highlights certain unforeseen events that ended up redounding to the benefit of our mission.  One curious example was this:

There were also inherent reductions in violence resulting from comprehensive [sectarian] cleansing, which were followed on by the efforts of U.S. forces to maintain the segregation of these neighborhoods. This contributed greatly to the let up in violence, but no one would have said that the [sectarian] cleansing or segregation of urban neighborhoods was easy.

No, that wasn't easy - at least for the Iraqis involved.  But what's the larger point: in Afghanistan, too, we might be able to benefit from ethnic/sectarian cleansing, followed up by some walling up of the resulting population segregation if we just hold on long enough?

Further pointing to the difficulty in improving the situation in Iraq does not necessarily amount to evidence that improving the situation in Afghanistan won't be harder.  When Bergmann gets around to actually comparing the respective underlying conditions, he fails to really delve into the factors that differentiate the two arenas, and instead waves away the differences with vague generalities:

Now – Afghanistan is hard, very hard. Its terrain is extremely challenging, its poor, the insurgency is rural-based, there is no history of a strong state, there are deep ethnic cleavages, it is bordered by an ungoverned region that serves as a safe haven and launching pad for attacks, and the insurgency is fueled by an uncontrollable drug trade. Oh it’s bad, real bad. But Iraq had much of this as well, such as uncontrolled border with Syria that allowed insurgents to stream across, not to mention a meddling Iran. And Afghanistan has some advantages, baseline expectations are lower, we are still more popular, we have allies, and there is an Army that is respected.

To put it bluntly, Bergmann is incorrect to suggest that Iraq shared many of these same challenges at comparable levels.  For example, Iraq doeshave a history of a strong state that stretches back - in some form or another - hundreds of years.  The Baath Party itself provided continuous, centralized control for the 40 years prior to the invasion.  Compared to Afghanistan's history...well, there really is no comparison. 

Further, Iraq's population is concentrated primarily in urban areas, not dispersed rurally as in Afghanistan.  The respective levels of poverty are also vastly different, as are the levels of education.  So, yes, Iraq had some of those issues to some degree in a general sense, but only on a more superficial, general level.

Bergmann's analogy of Syria and Iran is also dubious.  Contrary to some of the Bush administration's claims, Iran has actually acted to stabilize the situation in Iraq over the past couple of years (and prior to that time period in some ways, while using certain means to keep us off balance in others).  Recently, Iran has acted to undermine and rein in Sadr while backing Maliki's Dawa party, aswell as hsi coalition partners ISCI and the Kurdish parties, quite emphatically.  The reason is simple: Iran is allied with the major Shiite and Kurdish factions, and is more than amenable to their consolidation of power.  In other words, Iran is pushing in the same basic direction that we are because they're getting what they want - and they can live with our presence as long as there's a timeline for withdrawal, and explicit terms that we can't attack Iran via Iraqi soil or airspace.  Both of which they secured in the SOFA.  

Syria, for its part, eventually acted to seal off its border and received praise for their efforts from US military officials.

On the other hand, the elements of the Pakistani government that are supporting the Afghan insurgencies (and the elements in the lawless areas of Pakistan that are doing the same) are fundamentally opposed to the Karzai government that we are seeking to prop up, and want us out immediatley.  Thus, their level of opposition to our efforts is not really comparable to Iran's steps to assure its role and relations in the new Iraq.  After all, the opposition groups in and aroundPakistan don't want anew Afghanistan at all, whereas Iran very much wanted the deposing of Saddam followed by Shiite political ascension.

Bergmann closes his piece with this:

The point though is that this debate over what is harder is really not all that helpful. Each pose exceptionally challenging and unique circumstances and shouldn't really be compared in such a direct way. It also raises the uncomfortable question: If we are truly committed to Afghanistan and believe that it is harder than Iraq, shouldn’t we be committing more resources and manpower to Afghanistan than we did in Iraq?

But that, again, begs the question.  We can only compare the relative difficulty of the missions if we decide on what the mission is.  Is it lowered expectations of shutting down al-Qaeda while acquiescing to some inclusion of Taliban elements, or nation building in Afghanistan and Pakistna that would last decades?  Answer that first, and then we can talk about how challenging it will be, whether it compares to what we've accomplished in Iraq and whether or not we should "be committing more resources and manpower to Afghanistan than we did in Iraq?"

Comments

[jrudkis]

Iraqi society had a starting point before the invasion that Iraqis remember and would like to have back (though with significant changes in the balance of power). Iraq has an infrastructure and relatively educated and worldly population, and natural assets that can support the population. Iraq has a chance of reconciliation to achieve a peaceful coexistence.

I don't think Afghanistan has a starting point to return to for its society that its population remembers as better, unless you go back 30 years. And its population is much more tribal and locally oriented.

In Afghanistan, the mission is much more of a creation of society, rather than a reconstruction. I really don't see how any of our efforts will make that happen.

[Eric Martin]

Agree completely. A fundamental and essential difference.

[byrningman]

One fundamental difference I see between the two wars is that the American government is actually trying to define its goals in Afghanistan, ludicrously ambitious as they are. In Iraq, in contrast, the goals have always been meaningless vague and lofty, and American officials have shown an amazing talent for discovering the fulfillment of those goals in whatever today's circumstances in Iraq happen to be. In other words, Iraq was easier by definition, since victory there was defined as the achievement of victory.

[Eric Martin]

Just staying is victory!

But yeah. I mean, we've got Iraq to the "enviable" position of only having a couple hundred - to a few hundred - citizens dying each month in political violence.

So, it's unclear what exactly we want to replicate in Afghanistan.

[von]

The harder/not harder debate misses the point. Afghanistan is different from Iraq.

Also, we seem to be ignoring at least two relevant measures of relative ease: Lives and lucre. We clearly need to "ramp up" in Afghanistan -- and have so needed for some time. But every scenario out there involves substantially less money and manpower than was required for the same opportunity for success in Iraq.

[Slartibartfast]

We know Major Tom's a junky.

[Eric Martin]

Yeah, it's been confirmed. Also, an action man.

[Omega Centauri]

A big problem is that the attempt to stamp out the drugs trade forces lots of poor rural farmers to rely upon the Taliban for protection of their livelihood. We have goals which on the ground are incompatible. I would classify the drugs goal, as one that arises from domestic political considerations, and not a strategic assessment. We have got to determine what our priorities are. We cannot accomplish all our goals. We cannot afford the squandering of resources and blood that continuing the futile pursuit of the unachievable.

[Eric Martin]

I agree with that. Those goals work at cross-purposes, yet one more drawback to the neverending and wasteful "War on Drugs"

[russell]

Afghanistan is about half again as large as Iraq, with a slightly larger population. About 24% of the people live in or near cities, as compared to Iraq, where 2 out of 3 people live in or near cities.

Geographically, it's extremely mountainous. A lot of the country is, for all practical purposes, inaccessible at some times of the year. It's really cold in the winter and really hot in the summer.

There's not a lot of water. There's not a lot of arable land. There's not much for infrastructure. There's not a lot of money, and, other than opium, folks there don't really have or make anything that other folks will pay for.

The folks who live there represent a handful of very distinct, and often not mutually friendly, ethnic and linguistic groups.

The nearest US base to Afghanistan has been asked to be closed.

The national sport is bushkazi.

Other than the fact that most of the people who live there are Muslim, I don't see that the two places have anything whatsoever in common.

Afghanistan is a tough nut. Much tougher than Iraq. We should expect it to be an order of magnitude more difficult to achieve anything there.

Plus, we've been there since 2001. We've had seven and a half years to "Prevent, Protect, Build, and Hand-Off".

What have we achieved in that time?

To me, this seems like another bunch of suits with a PowerPoint presentation deciding what everyone else in the world needs to do. If that's where we're coming from, we should expect to see as much success as the last bunch did.

Never mind what *we* want. What do the Afghans want?

Answer that, and that is your way forward.

[spockamok]

"rather ambitious set of policy goals to include putting a halt to the opium trade"

This statement provokes me into one of my patented charm offensives:

Grow up. Grow up.

Those who believe that state-building in Afghanistan is critical for denial of safe havens to U.S. enemies, yet at the same time, lacks the courage to prioritize and say no to the pursuit of agendas that conflict with this like a counternarcotics campaign or NATO expansion, are not "serious" people.

A grown up who came to the considered decision that state-building, or even just persistent military leverage, in Afghanistan was vital would at least consider whether or not an opium crop purchase program or some other alternative to prohibition and eradication would work better. A grown up would at least consider stopping NATO expansion if that's what it takes to get its cooperation to sustain access routes to Central Asia that Pakistan does not control.

Those who won't consider these steps because they don't think it would "look good" to have something other than a hard line on drugs, or who think bargaining with the Russians is just too "icky" to do, even at risk of a weaker U.S. position vis-a-vis Afghanistan and Pakistan, are being children and show a childlike inability to prioritize.

Grown-ups would understand there are trade-offs between the anti-Al-Qaeda, anti-Taliban fight and other pre-9-11 bureaucratic prjects, and they would have the courage to make the hard choices.

[spockamok]

Where do you all draw the line between
modest & achievable versus grandiose & impossible goals?

For the Americans benefit:
Is it too ambitious to have as a goal that the pre-2001 Taliban state not be reestablished?

Is it too ambitious to have as a goal that Mullah Omar never be a part of the Aghan government again, even if some of his subordinates can be?

Is it too ambitious to have as a goal that pretty much all factions controlling territory in Afghanistan (ie, all those capable of providing sanctuary or hosting camps) see it as a distinctly *bad idea* to have any sort of alliances with transnational Islamist terrorists (like Al-Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Tayyiba) and prevent them from operating in country?

If just those goals are achieved, we win! by my definition, no matter what level of personal wealth, order, women's right, drug economy, or rule of law Afghanistan has. The quality of its constitutional regime, its balance of church/state, etc. are not victory criteria.

For the Afghans' benefit:
Is it too ambitious to have as a goal that Afghans who worked with us not see a mass decline in their personal safety after international forces leave?

Is it too ambitious to have as a goal that post-2001 gains in public health, personal income, infrastructure, and reduced child mortality not be reversed upon the departure of international forces?

If those goals can be achieved, and are not reversed, after the departure of international forces, then one can say the Afghan people win!

[Eric Martin]

I can live with that set of goals.