Can't win, blame Pakistan

[niazikhan2]

Dr Farrukh Saleem

2010 is Election Year for America. On Nov 2, voters will elect 440 members of the United States House of Representatives. The same day, elections will be held for at least 36 of the 100 seats in the Untied States Senate. The same day, gubernatorial elections will be held in 36 states.

In 2010, the War on Terror shall, therefore, be all about America's elections --elections that will be won or lost in Afghanistan, and in Pakistan, some 11,000 kilometres from Washington. According to Kamran Bokhari, Stratfor's director of Middle East Analysis, "Obama's shine is fading." All of Obama's generals and admirals are now fighting in order to bring some of Obama's old shine back.

Currently the Democratic Party has a 41-seat advantage in the House. On Dec 18, the independent Cook Political Report said, "Based on what we know today…..Republicans will make a 20-30 seat net gain in the House." A month ago, Cook had "judged that it would be a 15-25 seat pickup for the Republicans."

In October 2001, opinion polls showed that 80 percent of Americans and 65 per cent of Britons "backed military action in Afghanistan." In December, "only 32 per cent of Americans surveyed favoured increasing US troops in Afghanistan while 40 per cent favoured decreasing them. Almost half of Americans, 49 per cent, believe that the US should "mind its own business" internationally and "let other countries get along the best they can."

Obama's exit strategy is based on partnering with–and transferring security duties to the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan National Police (ANP). For the record, officers of the ANP continue to attack westerners and an officer of the ANA recently managed to penetrate high-security FOB Chapman killing seven CIA officials.

On Feb 18, Obama announced a 17,000 troop surge for Afghanistan. On Dec 1, Obama announced a second surge of 30,000 troops along with a withdrawal timeline beginning July 2011. The Taliban, on the other hand, smartly responded by declining to engage American troops in combat. As a consequence, 80 per cent of all Marine casualties in Afghanistan are not from combat but from IEDs (improvised explosive devices). In that sense, for the Taliban the surge merely increases the number of targets.

Gen Stanley McChrystal, commander of the US Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A), is fighting a war that has a definite political timeline while his opponents don't even have a timepiece. From that perspective, it's a clash of timelines whereby heads or tails McChrystal loses. Gen McChrystal is here to fight while the Taliban, denying him combat, merely want to exhaust the general and his soldiers.

Obama needs to show a win in Afghanistan or Republicans will take control of the House. If Gen McChrystal is unable to give Obama what the president needs then the general's next best bet would be to find a scapegoat a few months before the Day of Atonement (Nov 2, in this case).

The dictionary definition of a scapegoat is the "one that is made to bear the blame of others" or a person "often innocent, who is blamed and punished for the sins, crimes, or sufferings of others, generally as a way of distracting attention from the real causes."

Guess who that scapegoat will be. And, guess how the war in Afghanistan is going to shift eastward-intensified drone attacks, Special Forces operations, cross-border armed insurrections and a sharp escalation of violence within Pakistan.



The writer is an Islamabad-based columnist. Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com