|
The
outlook for the U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan has darkened further in
recent weeks. On Jan. 18, the Taliban succeeded in carrying out a
large-scale attack in central Kabul, showing that they could
penetrate all the security barriers protecting the Afghan capital. The
operation was a costly one for the Taliban, involving suicide
commandos. But it made its point. Moreover, it demonstrated the new
Taliban tactic of avoiding indiscriminate slaughter, a break from the
pattern of the suicide bombings carried out in Pakistan.
The
New York Times reported Jan. 20: “The Taliban have embarked on a
sophisticated information war, using modern media tools as well as some
old-fashioned ones, to soften their image and win favor with local
Afghans as they try to counter the Americans’ new campaign to win
Afghan hearts and minds.”
The
article continued: “Now, as the Taliban deepen their presence in more
of Afghanistan, they are in greater need
of popular support and are recasting themselves increasingly as a local
liberation movement, independent of Al Qaeda,
capitalizing on the mounting frustration of Afghans with their own
government and the presence of foreign troops. The effect has been to
make them a more potent insurgency, some NATO officials said.”
The
shift of the Taliban makes still more doubtful any success of the
recruiting of local irregular forces as auxiliaries of the Afghan army
and the occupiers, the tactic that was decisive for the U.S.-led
occupation getting the upper hand in Iraq.
In
Iraq, the U.S. strategy was based on the
backlash against the ruthlessness of al-Qaeda
in Mesopotamia. The Taliban leadership’s
new tactical stance apparently also reflects, as the article indicates,
that the base of the insurgency is becoming politically broader.
On
Jan. 26, The
New York Times published excerpts from
cables from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan that indicated a sharp
disagreement in U.S. ruling circles over the escalation of the intervention
in Afghanistan: “The cables—one four pages, the other three—also
represent a detailed rebuttal to the counterinsurgency strategy offered
by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top
American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, who had argued that a rapid
infusion of fresh troops was essential to avoid failure in the country.
“They
show that Mr. Eikenberry [the current U.S.
ambassador], a retired Army lieutenant general who once was the top
American commander in Afghanistan, repeatedly cautioned that deploying
sizable American reinforcements would result in ‘astronomical
costs’—tens of billions of dollars—and would only deepen the dependence
of the Afghan government on the United States.”
After
the release of the cables, Eikenberry tried
to quiet the sensation, claiming that his concerns had been satisfied.
But the publication of such internal government documents by the
official in charge of U.S. relations with Afghanistan was extremely unusual, if
not unprecedented. It must reflect grave worries in the U.S. ruling circles about the
future of the U.S.-led occupation. They have good reason to worry. The
Afghan occupation is leading them into murkier and murkier waters.
|