A Deadly Friendship

News coverage of the failed attempt by a Nigerian born man to detonate an explosive device on a Detroit bound aircraft has overshadowed a perhaps more significant event in Afghanistan. On December 30^th a Jordanian al Qaeda operative, who was recruited by Jordanian intelligence to penetrate al Qaeda, detonated a bomb at a CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan. This attack killed 7 CIA officers and the Jordanian intelligence officer assigned to the case, the deadliest single attack in CIA history.

The Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda all took credit for this attack. It is possible that the claims of joint responsibility are a result of the fact that the attack was successful. Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. It, however, is also possible that these three organizations are now beginning to cooperate.

Ever since 2002 when NATO forces with the assistance of Iran and the non-Pashtun Northern Alliance overthrew the Taliban Pashtun led government and drove al Qaeda and Taliban leadership into Pakistan, the three groups have largely operated separately with different agendas. Until the US persuaded the Pakistani government to confront the Pakistani Taliban, this group had an agenda of establishing a Islamic mini-state within the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. They now have more aggressively challenged the weak Pakistan government. The Afghan Taliban was conducting an insurgency against the NATO occupation and the Karzai government. Al Qaeda is focused on attacking “western imperialists” and their allied Arab governments.

If these three groups begin to see the “enemy of my enemy as my friend” it will greatly complicate the regional situation. Not only will it expand the recruiting pool of militant fighters, but it will also facilitate the exchange of tactical information and intelligence resources. US Arab allies, such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia will be more exposed as their own Islamist populations become more militant and oppose their governments’ policies.

The most exposed is Jordan. The direct involvement of Jordanian forces in Afghanistan fighting other Muslims has been vehemently attacked by the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood. (A story on this is here) King Abdullah is no where near as politically astute as his father or as adept at balancing competing forces. His government will be under increased stress. In this region it is dangerous to be an enemy of the US, but to be a friend can be deadly.

Jihad 2.0

Over the last few weeks, President Obama has been both Commander in Chief and Consoler in Chief. As Commander in Chief, he has grappled with the thorny questions of what does victory in Afghanistan look like, what is a proper strategy and what are appropriate troop levels. As Consoler in Chief he has tried to help the nation deal with the murder of 13 people by Major Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood, Texas. The media has covered these two events in depth, but has not addressed the linkage between them.

Obama is taking his time considering the proper goals and strategy. In February he said that his goal was to “make sure that it (Afghanistan) is not a safe haven for al Qaida”. If this is the definition of victory, then we “won” in 2002 when the Taliban was overthrown and al Qaida was driven into Pakistan. Since then drone attacks in Pakistan have devastated their leadership and destroyed their ability to organize and implement major attacks such as 9/11. Even if the Taliban returned to power, it is unlikely that they would make themselves a target again by inviting al Qaida back.

In response al Qaida has changed from a strategy of training fighters for a conventional battle to a media and internet based strategy targeted at angry and disaffected Muslims in western countries. Sophisticated websites (Examples are here and here.) call on Muslims around the world to conduct a “holy war” against the “Western Zionist crusaders”. The message resonates with some Muslims who watch innocent Muslims killed and wounded by “Western Zionist crusaders” in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza. The strategy has proven successful in motivating attacks from the sophisticated bombings in London and Madrid to the free lance shootings at Fort Hood.

As long as the US continues to be seen as part of the “Western Zionist crusade”, we will continue to face this type of attack. For democracies these are extremely difficult to prevent. Sending 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan is, in my opinion, fighting the “last war”. It will only give credibility to the al Qaida message that the US is waging a war on Islam.

Choices in Afghanistan

As the Obama administration conducted its promised reassessment of the situation in Afghanistan, it faced three basic options for moving forward to deal with this intractable problem. The overall US strategic interest, as Obama has indicated on several occasions, is to prevent organizations with global reach, such as al Qaeda, from using Afghanistan as a base from which to attack US interests around the world.
One option is to scale back ambitions and restrict activities to those that would insure that Afghanistan is not used as an al Qaeda sanctuary. A second option is to mount a large scale counter insurgency effort utilizing large numbers of US/NATO troops to defeat the Taliban, create a large economic development effort and install a friendly government. The third option is to boost US commitment to train Afghan police and security forces to allow them to assume the primary role in the conflict.
Each of these options has risks, advantages and problems. In today’s announcement regarding the way forward in Afghanistan, the Obama administration appears to have signed up for the third option.
The first option would have required admitting defeat and conducting a long term campaign of military attacks and covert actions which would undermine and destabilize the Afghan government. It appears that this endless conflict was not palatable politically.
The second option would have required a large commitment of US/NATO combat forces for a long period of time. The administration would have faced escalating US casualties. Also, providing logistical support to a large combat force would also have been a daunting task. The Taliban has shown an increasing capability to interdict the current supply route through Pakistan and the Khyber Pass. The present alternate overland route through Russia and Central Asia is difficult and limited to “non-lethal” material. The best alternative for a massive logistical effort utilizes the Iranian port of Chabaher on the Gulf of Oman and the existing Indian/Iranian constructed highway into Afghanistan. For this overt cooperation with the US, Iran surely would have extracted major concessions on other issues that would have been politically difficult for the US.
The third option, while eliminating the downsides of the other two, has its own issues. Standing up the Afghan security forces will be difficult, time consuming and expensive. While many of the insurgents and their supporters, both within and outside of the security forces, are not ideological supporters of the Taliban, they do fear Taliban retribution and support them for economic reasons (They pay better.). Countering this will require establishing security, destroying the drug trade (the major source of Taliban funding), eliminating Taliban bases in Pakistan and co-opting low and middle level Taliban. Ongoing attacks inside Pakistan to eliminate bases, with the resulting civilian casualties, run the risk of destabilizing nuclear armed Pakistan.
What ever the option, the road out of this mess will be long and hard.