Obama’s War, by Jared Sichel

President Obama’s speech to American soldiers at West Point Tuesday evening declaring a 30,000 troop surge into Afghanistan marked the first necessary deviation from his left-wing base, but his concessions to the base and his misguided view of the Middle East may outweigh any gain from the surge.

Obama came into office setting Al Qaeda and the Taliban as America’s arch nemeses. Partially because of that assertion during his presidential campaign, Obama had no choice but to plan for a surge in Afghanistan.

But Obama was motivated by more important things than politics in deciding to not withdraw. The President knows that it is in America’s interests to not leave Afghanistan to the barbarism and savagery of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, which would leave us open to another horrific terrorist attack similar to the one eight years ago.

As evidenced by his remarks, though, Obama’s “speech plan” stands a small chance of replacing the current mess in Afghanistan with a functioning nation free of terrorist hives. But who knows if his plan as outlined in his speech will be his eventual path? It is entirely possible that Generals Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus are working with Obama on developing a strategy that would leave American troops there as a safety net long past Obama’s targeted July 2011 withdrawal date, but he doesn’t want to make that public for security and political reasons.

Regarding his official plan, intending and especially publicly proclaiming to withdraw in 18 months is poor military strategy that runs counter to McChrystal’s recommendations a few months ago that our commitment to Afghanistan should be open-ended.

There’s no evidence from the past eight years that American and European coalition forces can rid Afghanistan of terrorist infrastructures in the next 18 months. The country may have official borders, but the real borders of Afghanistan are the multitude of mountain ranges. The mountainous terrain gives rise to different tribes, cultures and ethnicities, which makes development of shared values and goals a nearly impossible pursuit. And as shown in Iraq, a precondition to destroying terrorist infrastructure is a shared contempt from the nation towards the terrorists.

Obama’s nation-building plan is unlikely to work in Afghanistan, namely because Afghanistan is not a nation and cannot be built into one.

“We’ll support Afghan ministries, governors and local leaders that combat corruption and deliver for the people,” Obama said. “We expect those who are ineffective or corrupt to be held accountable.”
Those are unenforceable goals, and additionally, incentives in Afghanistan are different than incentives in the West. If providing incentives for good behavior were an easily attainable goal, then nation-building itself would be easy.

Obama is hoping that an Iraq-like counterinsurgency will somehow turn Afghanistan from a lawless country into a democracy in 18 months. General Petraeus’ Iraq strategy is working thus far, but Iraq is far from stable. If Iraq-flat-terrainedwith no pre-invasion terrorist infrastructure-has not been turned into a democracy yet, there is scant hope that Afghanistan will be any simpler.

Regionally, despite the President’s step forward in surging into Afghanistan, he still has a myopic view of Islamist extremist terror. As New York Times writer Thomas Friedman points out, “Iraq was about ‘the war on terrorism’. The Afghanistan invasion… was about the ‘war on terrorists.’” Regardless of the Bush administration’s motivations for going into Iraq, it is undeniable that it became a magnet for terrorists, making Iraq the main front of the “War on Terror.” Al Qaeda, and more importantly, Iran and its proxies have suffered massive defeats in Iraq.

Obama is unwilling to acknowledge that Iran finances and invests in terrorist groups. He doesn’t pressure Saudi Arabia to cut off funding to radical schools that inject hate-fueled primarily by a sense of false victimization-into children’s minds. He only sees Al Qaeda and the Taliban. He doesn’t see Hezbollah and Hamas, and their financiers and guardians in Damascus and Tehran. The Iraq war may very well end up harming America, but that cannot yet be judged. The President’s tunnel vision on Al Qaeda, though, will draw our focus away from the more dangerous enemy, which is widespread Islamist extremism and its product of terrorism.

There’s no doubt that Obama’s rebuke of his base by surging is a courageous and admirable move. But a nation-building scheme in a non-nation limited to 18 months because of political pressure from the left won’t be enough to prevent Al Qaeda from establishing another safe haven. And the President’s hyper-focused view on Al Qaeda will take our eye off our new primary enemy, Iran.

Jared Sichel is a sophomore in Newcomb-Tulane. He can be reached for comment at jsichel@tulane.edu.