Will Afghanistan live up to its history and tradition of defeating foreign armies that invaded it to shape its politics and foreign policy in the ongoing war?
This question is important as shadows of gloom extend over the capacity, political will and resource-sustainability of the United States and its NATO allies to achieve the objectives they set for themselves nearly eight years ago.
They have neither won nor have they lost the war entirely. At best, it appears to be a mixed picture, and maybe it is not anymore as the question of when troops return home becomes politically significant in the United States and other countries involved in the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Americans have increasingly started questioning the wisdom of continuing with a war that seems to have no exit strategy, or any clear idea about when the Afghan state and its institutions will be able to stand on their own.
The question now is about the ownership of the war, its objectives, costs and whether or not Americans will succeed in establishing a preferred state structure, a security order and peace by defeating the forces it has been at war with for the last eight years. Recent surveys clearly indicate that American society is exhausted and not willing to support this adventure endlessly.
And it is not just public opinion in the US or other countries that is turning against the war; it is also the breakdown of consensus among American political elites from the Democratic and Republican parties, and even within their ranks. In industrial democracies, no party or leadership can pursue an unpopular set of policies for too long or without seriously damaging its support base. That is a cost that pragmatic politicians never pay. They try to convince the population, invoking responsibility and national interest, but when they fail, as appears to be the case in the US today, they undertake path correction.
Will President Barack Obama change American policy toward Afghanistan in the face of some hard facts? The Taliban are on the rise, their attacks against coalition forces have increased and so has the casualty rate of American and British soldiers in war zones.
The characterising of the war by President Obama as a ‘war of necessity’ smacks of defeatism. Without some moral foundation, wars like the one in Afghanistan can neither be fought effectively nor can they sustain the necessary support from the people back home. Much has changed over the past eight years in the US and in the theatre of war in Afghanistan. A rational approach, at least at the popular level, has replaced the national emotions generated by the tragedy of 9/11 in the United States.
Unpopularity of the war in the US and in NATO countries that have sent forces in Afghanistan has encouraged the Taliban insurgency. The basic assumptions of the Taliban about the war are undeniably rational and right on the money. They are right in assuming that time is on their side and not on the side of invading forces that cannot stay on the ground and fight an unpopular war; that they can ‘win by not losing it’; and that they can rely on the time-tested strategy to use Islam and nationalism to portray foreign forces as occupiers, thus demanding Afghans to help in the liberation of their homeland.
In a climate of ethnic divisions, however, not all Afghans today share the views of the Taliban or have responded to their call for war. The country is sharply divided between old foes: the Taliban rooted in the Pashtun ethnicity, and the Tajiks and others that have supported the American-led war for their own liberation from Taliban rule.
Much to the advantage of the Taliban, the security and political situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and the reconstruction of the Afghan state and building up of its security forces lag far behind the benchmarks set.
The members of international community that have sent their forces to secure Afghanistan or have committed economic resources to rehabilitate its infrastructure are increasingly becoming pessimistic about the political capacity of the Afghan government to deliver any goods to the society. Frequent reports of corruption, infighting among leaders, rigged elections and a heavy cloud of illegitimacy hanging over the presidency may not inspire much confidence about stability and political cohesion.
There is growing sentiment within Afghanistan and around the region that the United States cannot politically and economically sustain this war, let alone decisively win it. What may matter now is when foreign forces will withdraw and what kind of state and society they will leave behind.
Even if the Americans and the British redefine their role and stay on as watchdogs, shifting greater responsibility to the government in Kabul to fight the Taliban, they may not be able to prevent the outbreak of all-out civil war among the ethnic groups. That would mean more bloodshed, and territorial fragmentation of Afghanistan along ethnic lines and regional rivalries.
While American planners think more about the surge, dump more weapons and launch more operations, they must also think about what they have achieved so far through war. If the purpose was to defeat the Taliban, they have not accomplished this task beyond removing them from power. All indications are that the Taliban are a rising force. People, particularly in the Pashtun-dominated regions, are alienated, insecure and unwilling to risk their lives by supporting foreign forces. The important point is that siding with foreign forces against local militias is simply not a Pashtun tradition; it is against their values of honour and national obligation.
The United States is the third great power that has invaded Afghanistan, though for very different reasons and under different circumstances as compared to what confronted the British in the 19th century and the Soviet Union in the 1980s. There is no hope that Washington will succeed where others failed. There is great likelihood, as the unfolding of events in Afghanistan suggests, that the country may prove once again to be a ‘graveyard of empires’. The war may also prove another point: conquest through overwhelming force may come easy but not the effective control of a society with a long martial tradition and a strong myth of resistance.
Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais is author of Recovering the Frontier State: War, Ethnicity and State in Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2008) and a professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He can be reached at
rasul@lums.edu.pk