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April 7, 2009
Exclusive: Forcing the Next Generation to Revisit Afghanistan
Around a decade after a coalition force drove Saddam Hussein's army out of Kuwait, I was a young Navy ROTC midshipman. At that point in time, concerns had begun to develop regarding the emerging influence of China within the Asian sphere and on the world stage. However, when one asked what the greatest threat to America's security was, the answer was always the same: Iraq. Students who had served prior enlistments recognized the Iraqi threat, as did the instructors. The latter group noted that America's defense planning involved the possibility of fighting independent, simultaneous wars on two fronts: Iraq, and the Korean Peninsula. It was universally recognized not only that the containment policy was failing, but that its limited effectiveness was not a viable long-term solution.
The reason for this fixation on Iraq was simple: international political limitations prevented the coalition from completing the mission at hand when the opportunity arose in 1991. Had combat forces pushed through to Baghdad during the Persian Gulf War, the partnership of such nations as Egypt, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates would have deteriorated immediately. Instead, the operation ended with the liberation of Kuwait. The following were a few of the prominent results of this limited engagement:
* Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi Baath Party remained in power. Immediately following the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Saddam Hussein ruthlessly hunted down and executed rebels and dissidents, and ruled through a policy of domestic terror until his ouster in 2003.
* During the interim period, Hussein continued development of illicit weapons programs for at least several years, openly funded and provided material support to multiple international terrorist groups, corrupted and circumvented both the UN sanctions and the Oil-for-Food program, and undermined the UNMOVIC inspection program. These were violations of the conditions that Hussein agreed to in order to suspend combat during the 1991 conflict.
* By corrupting the Oil-for-Food scheme, Hussein created a persistent humanitarian crisis in Iraq by preventing food and medical supplies from reaching the citizens. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraqi life expectancy fell while infant mortality rates rose.
* The United States was forced through strategic necessity to station troops in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, both to defend American interests and to defend the allied Gulf States from further Iraqi attacks. Fundamentalist anger over the American presence in Saudi Arabia resulted in multiple terrorist attacks from 1993 onward, and was Osama bin Laden's primary stated motive for staging the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
* U.S. Air Force personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia were involved in the enforcement of United Nations-mandated no-fly zones in order to prevent Hussein's troops from resuming attacks against Shia minorities in the south and Kurdish minorities in the north. Iraqi forces fired on coalition aircraft on a near-daily basis.
* U.S. Navy personnel were also involved in more than a decade of interdiction operations, searching ships in the Persian Gulf in order to prevent Iraq from acquiring or exporting numerous types of illegal material in accordance with UN sanctions.
The precedent set by the Persian Gulf War was that a nation could remain reliably safe from international intervention for violations of human rights, international law, and other crimes as long as those crimes occurred within that country's borders. Iraq's national sovereignty trumped the necessity to prevent Saddam Hussein from continuing his crimes against his people and his neighbors, and this set the stage for humanitarian disasters in Somalia, Rwanda, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
Every last coalition military member should be proud to have accomplished such great feats during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. However, political constraints prevented the coalition from truly completing the task. Following the end of major combat operations, Iraq became a major focus of military attention; with the collapse of the Soviet Empire by the end of 1991, Iraq became the central focus of that attention – a focus that was truly interrupted only once, 10 years later, when the 9/11 terrorist attacks caused American attention to shift temporarily to Afghanistan. Because of Saddam Hussein's open support for international terrorism, his past development of weapons of mass destruction, and Iraq's combined unwillingness and inability to prove material compliance with the UN resolutions that ended the 1991 conflict, the United States government and a coalition of nations decided that the failing policy of containment was no longer viable following the horrific terrorist violence of 9/11. The world is now intimately familiar with the history of Iraq since 2003. While the results of the 2003 invasion and its aftermath have ranged from challenging to horrific, it now seems likely that the final result will be far more viable than the failed containment policy of the 1990s.
One could feasibly describe the 2003 invasion not as an independent conflict, but as a continuation of the 1991 engagement. Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of 1990, and it is almost certain that there are troops now deployed to Iraq who were born after the original conflict began. Most of those who have fought in the war were children during the 1991 campaign. The painful truth of this is that the world leaders of 1991 put their successors and children in a position whereby the conundrum of Iraq would be inevitably revisited, spawning additional conflicts in the process. Far from having learned from this lesson (a lesson that was supposedly learned several times during the course of the Twentieth Century), it seems that American and international leaders may be preparing to repeat this mistake in Afghanistan. In the same week that President Obama announced his new plan for Afghanistan, he also highlighted the need for an exit strategy (BBC, AFP, Times). Even the world-renowned independent journalist Michael Yon has questioned Afghanistan's value if America and the coalition are unwilling to truly commit to winning there. Yon, a former special forces soldier himself, expressed unabashed disappointment at President Obama's plan.
Much has been made of the alleged differences between Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq was supposedly an artificial creation, while Afghanistan was supposedly an ancient nation with a rich history. Iraq was modern and sat on strategic ground, but Afghanistan was a backwater with no strategic value whatsoever. However, Iraq and Afghanistan are far more similar than many have claimed, both in their history and in their recent and current situations. For the purpose of this discussion, the similarities between the two nations are worth noting.
* Both nations are artificial creations that split religious boundaries. While Iraq is home to Sunni, Shia, Catholic, and Yazidi communities, among others, Afghanistan contains Sunni and Shia groups. In both cases, these religious differences have resulted in violence against religious minorities.
* Both nations are also ethnically diverse. Afghanistan has Pashtuns, Balochs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazaras, and Turkmens, among others, while Iraqi ethnic groups include Arabs, Kurds, and Chaldeans.
* The creation of both countries involved the division of ethnic nations, which caused tension and violence not only within each nation's borders, but with each nation's neighbors - and does to this day, in both nations.
* Both the Taliban and the Hussein regime openly supported and hosted terrorist groups.
* Governments of both nations acted as destabilizers in their regions: Iraq either invaded or remotely attacked most of its neighbors, while Afghanistan has destabilized both Pakistan and eastern Iran.
* In both cases, the West supported rebel groups for a limited time and suspended support for them when it was no longer deemed to be important to Western interests. This came full circle in both Afghanistan and Iraq, leading to Western intervention in both cases.
In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the wars of the early 21st century result from unfinished business from the days of the Cold War. >From the Iran-Iraq War, to the Persian Gulf War, to Iraq's support for terrorism and development of illegal weapons, Iraq was on the world's collective threat radar for more than two decades because the international community refused to address the root cause of the problem. Afghanistan endured coups, civil wars, and an invasion by the Soviet Union. While the claim that the United States somehow created al Qaeda and supported Osama bin Laden is a destructive falsehood, the West's failure to provide support for Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawal provided the environment that led to the rise of the Taliban. This, in turn, provided a friendly regime for the establishment of al Qaeda logistical and training facilities – facilities that almost certainly would not have arisen in Afghanistan had the international community done its duty there in 1989, or at any time during the 1990s when Afghanistan was tearing itself apart.
While the situation in Iraq has improved dramatically, and the likelihood of a consolidated victory grows with each day, the situation in Afghanistan has become extremely precarious. With talk of "exit strategies" and questions of "what Afghanistan is really worth to us," it seems appropriate to consider what will happen if the International Security Assistance Force leaves before the Taliban is defeated and a stable situation is established.
* Leaving before the job is done will reinforce the "paper tiger" analogy about the United States. This has emboldened America's enemies in the past, and would do so in the future.
* Further, it will demonstrate to allies in the Muslim world and elsewhere that America can not be relied upon for committed support, particularly when the challenges at hand are difficult ones.
* Such a demonstration would be a hit to the American economy at a time when it is uncharacteristically weak. American economic strength is based largely on an assumption that the United States will defend its economic interests abroad, as well as those of its allies. Such waffling would also discourage foreign investment.
* An early withdrawal would result in a humanitarian disaster for the Afghan and Pakistani people – a surgical hunt for al Qaeda will do nothing to stop the Taliban from resuming their reign of terror in Afghanistan, and in the Taliban-controlled regions of northwest Pakistan.
* The Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police are not yet ready to stand on their own against the Taliban, meaning that the Taliban would likely take control of at least part if not most of Afghanistan. This would once again provide al Qaeda, the Taliban's closest allies, with a base to continue training and preparation for more terrorist attacks.
* Beyond merely emboldening terrorists, an early withdrawal would provide al Qaeda and other terrorist groups with a strategic success, resulting in a propaganda victory that will encourage recruiting and support for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
* At the moment, efforts to stifle opium cultivation are succeeding. If the coalition withdraws too early, the world can expect opium cultivation to skyrocket once again, and this cultivation and distribution will finance criminal enterprises and terrorism around the world.
With these developments likely to occur if the international community withdraws its support too early, the world can expect a repeat of the situation in Iraq: more regional instability and likely terrorist attacks abroad; the fighting of the opium war internationally, instead of at the source; and a humanitarian crisis like the one that existed in Afghanistan prior to the 2001 invasion. With the exception of the opium problem, this likely scenario seems eerily similar to the regional instability, support for international terrorism, and humanitarian crises that were caused by the Hussein regime between 1991 and 2003.
In the end, it was the United States that monitored, and subsequently addressed what the collective international community decided to abandon in 1991. Unsubstantiated claims of a decline in American power notwithstanding, the United States can expect to be the world's police and humanitarian support force well into the foreseeable future. The results of a premature withdrawal from Afghanistan can be summarily predicted, and one can hold a reasonable expectation of American involvement in the next Afghan crisis. Just as it was in Iraq, any subsequent endeavour in Afghanistan will be more difficult to accomplish then than it will be now.
One thing is certain: if the United States and her allies withdraw too early, military officer cadets and their instructors the world over will begin to anticipate the eventual re-engagement, and Afghanistan will remain on the world's collective threat radar until the inevitable flare-up that compels the world to act once again. Thus the question becomes this: will America accomplish the mission now, once and for all? Or will today's leaders leave the heavy lifting to their children, like the international leaders of 1991 left the crisis in Iraq to be dealt with by the next generation of leaders and soldiers?
The reason for this fixation on Iraq was simple: international political limitations prevented the coalition from completing the mission at hand when the opportunity arose in 1991. Had combat forces pushed through to Baghdad during the Persian Gulf War, the partnership of such nations as Egypt, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates would have deteriorated immediately. Instead, the operation ended with the liberation of Kuwait. The following were a few of the prominent results of this limited engagement:
* Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi Baath Party remained in power. Immediately following the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Saddam Hussein ruthlessly hunted down and executed rebels and dissidents, and ruled through a policy of domestic terror until his ouster in 2003.
* During the interim period, Hussein continued development of illicit weapons programs for at least several years, openly funded and provided material support to multiple international terrorist groups, corrupted and circumvented both the UN sanctions and the Oil-for-Food program, and undermined the UNMOVIC inspection program. These were violations of the conditions that Hussein agreed to in order to suspend combat during the 1991 conflict.
* By corrupting the Oil-for-Food scheme, Hussein created a persistent humanitarian crisis in Iraq by preventing food and medical supplies from reaching the citizens. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraqi life expectancy fell while infant mortality rates rose.
* The United States was forced through strategic necessity to station troops in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, both to defend American interests and to defend the allied Gulf States from further Iraqi attacks. Fundamentalist anger over the American presence in Saudi Arabia resulted in multiple terrorist attacks from 1993 onward, and was Osama bin Laden's primary stated motive for staging the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
* U.S. Air Force personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia were involved in the enforcement of United Nations-mandated no-fly zones in order to prevent Hussein's troops from resuming attacks against Shia minorities in the south and Kurdish minorities in the north. Iraqi forces fired on coalition aircraft on a near-daily basis.
* U.S. Navy personnel were also involved in more than a decade of interdiction operations, searching ships in the Persian Gulf in order to prevent Iraq from acquiring or exporting numerous types of illegal material in accordance with UN sanctions.
The precedent set by the Persian Gulf War was that a nation could remain reliably safe from international intervention for violations of human rights, international law, and other crimes as long as those crimes occurred within that country's borders. Iraq's national sovereignty trumped the necessity to prevent Saddam Hussein from continuing his crimes against his people and his neighbors, and this set the stage for humanitarian disasters in Somalia, Rwanda, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
Every last coalition military member should be proud to have accomplished such great feats during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. However, political constraints prevented the coalition from truly completing the task. Following the end of major combat operations, Iraq became a major focus of military attention; with the collapse of the Soviet Empire by the end of 1991, Iraq became the central focus of that attention – a focus that was truly interrupted only once, 10 years later, when the 9/11 terrorist attacks caused American attention to shift temporarily to Afghanistan. Because of Saddam Hussein's open support for international terrorism, his past development of weapons of mass destruction, and Iraq's combined unwillingness and inability to prove material compliance with the UN resolutions that ended the 1991 conflict, the United States government and a coalition of nations decided that the failing policy of containment was no longer viable following the horrific terrorist violence of 9/11. The world is now intimately familiar with the history of Iraq since 2003. While the results of the 2003 invasion and its aftermath have ranged from challenging to horrific, it now seems likely that the final result will be far more viable than the failed containment policy of the 1990s.
One could feasibly describe the 2003 invasion not as an independent conflict, but as a continuation of the 1991 engagement. Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of 1990, and it is almost certain that there are troops now deployed to Iraq who were born after the original conflict began. Most of those who have fought in the war were children during the 1991 campaign. The painful truth of this is that the world leaders of 1991 put their successors and children in a position whereby the conundrum of Iraq would be inevitably revisited, spawning additional conflicts in the process. Far from having learned from this lesson (a lesson that was supposedly learned several times during the course of the Twentieth Century), it seems that American and international leaders may be preparing to repeat this mistake in Afghanistan. In the same week that President Obama announced his new plan for Afghanistan, he also highlighted the need for an exit strategy (BBC, AFP, Times). Even the world-renowned independent journalist Michael Yon has questioned Afghanistan's value if America and the coalition are unwilling to truly commit to winning there. Yon, a former special forces soldier himself, expressed unabashed disappointment at President Obama's plan.
Much has been made of the alleged differences between Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq was supposedly an artificial creation, while Afghanistan was supposedly an ancient nation with a rich history. Iraq was modern and sat on strategic ground, but Afghanistan was a backwater with no strategic value whatsoever. However, Iraq and Afghanistan are far more similar than many have claimed, both in their history and in their recent and current situations. For the purpose of this discussion, the similarities between the two nations are worth noting.
* Both nations are artificial creations that split religious boundaries. While Iraq is home to Sunni, Shia, Catholic, and Yazidi communities, among others, Afghanistan contains Sunni and Shia groups. In both cases, these religious differences have resulted in violence against religious minorities.
* Both nations are also ethnically diverse. Afghanistan has Pashtuns, Balochs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazaras, and Turkmens, among others, while Iraqi ethnic groups include Arabs, Kurds, and Chaldeans.
* The creation of both countries involved the division of ethnic nations, which caused tension and violence not only within each nation's borders, but with each nation's neighbors - and does to this day, in both nations.
* Both the Taliban and the Hussein regime openly supported and hosted terrorist groups.
* Governments of both nations acted as destabilizers in their regions: Iraq either invaded or remotely attacked most of its neighbors, while Afghanistan has destabilized both Pakistan and eastern Iran.
* In both cases, the West supported rebel groups for a limited time and suspended support for them when it was no longer deemed to be important to Western interests. This came full circle in both Afghanistan and Iraq, leading to Western intervention in both cases.
In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the wars of the early 21st century result from unfinished business from the days of the Cold War. >From the Iran-Iraq War, to the Persian Gulf War, to Iraq's support for terrorism and development of illegal weapons, Iraq was on the world's collective threat radar for more than two decades because the international community refused to address the root cause of the problem. Afghanistan endured coups, civil wars, and an invasion by the Soviet Union. While the claim that the United States somehow created al Qaeda and supported Osama bin Laden is a destructive falsehood, the West's failure to provide support for Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawal provided the environment that led to the rise of the Taliban. This, in turn, provided a friendly regime for the establishment of al Qaeda logistical and training facilities – facilities that almost certainly would not have arisen in Afghanistan had the international community done its duty there in 1989, or at any time during the 1990s when Afghanistan was tearing itself apart.
While the situation in Iraq has improved dramatically, and the likelihood of a consolidated victory grows with each day, the situation in Afghanistan has become extremely precarious. With talk of "exit strategies" and questions of "what Afghanistan is really worth to us," it seems appropriate to consider what will happen if the International Security Assistance Force leaves before the Taliban is defeated and a stable situation is established.
* Leaving before the job is done will reinforce the "paper tiger" analogy about the United States. This has emboldened America's enemies in the past, and would do so in the future.
* Further, it will demonstrate to allies in the Muslim world and elsewhere that America can not be relied upon for committed support, particularly when the challenges at hand are difficult ones.
* Such a demonstration would be a hit to the American economy at a time when it is uncharacteristically weak. American economic strength is based largely on an assumption that the United States will defend its economic interests abroad, as well as those of its allies. Such waffling would also discourage foreign investment.
* An early withdrawal would result in a humanitarian disaster for the Afghan and Pakistani people – a surgical hunt for al Qaeda will do nothing to stop the Taliban from resuming their reign of terror in Afghanistan, and in the Taliban-controlled regions of northwest Pakistan.
* The Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police are not yet ready to stand on their own against the Taliban, meaning that the Taliban would likely take control of at least part if not most of Afghanistan. This would once again provide al Qaeda, the Taliban's closest allies, with a base to continue training and preparation for more terrorist attacks.
* Beyond merely emboldening terrorists, an early withdrawal would provide al Qaeda and other terrorist groups with a strategic success, resulting in a propaganda victory that will encourage recruiting and support for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
* At the moment, efforts to stifle opium cultivation are succeeding. If the coalition withdraws too early, the world can expect opium cultivation to skyrocket once again, and this cultivation and distribution will finance criminal enterprises and terrorism around the world.
With these developments likely to occur if the international community withdraws its support too early, the world can expect a repeat of the situation in Iraq: more regional instability and likely terrorist attacks abroad; the fighting of the opium war internationally, instead of at the source; and a humanitarian crisis like the one that existed in Afghanistan prior to the 2001 invasion. With the exception of the opium problem, this likely scenario seems eerily similar to the regional instability, support for international terrorism, and humanitarian crises that were caused by the Hussein regime between 1991 and 2003.
In the end, it was the United States that monitored, and subsequently addressed what the collective international community decided to abandon in 1991. Unsubstantiated claims of a decline in American power notwithstanding, the United States can expect to be the world's police and humanitarian support force well into the foreseeable future. The results of a premature withdrawal from Afghanistan can be summarily predicted, and one can hold a reasonable expectation of American involvement in the next Afghan crisis. Just as it was in Iraq, any subsequent endeavour in Afghanistan will be more difficult to accomplish then than it will be now.
One thing is certain: if the United States and her allies withdraw too early, military officer cadets and their instructors the world over will begin to anticipate the eventual re-engagement, and Afghanistan will remain on the world's collective threat radar until the inevitable flare-up that compels the world to act once again. Thus the question becomes this: will America accomplish the mission now, once and for all? Or will today's leaders leave the heavy lifting to their children, like the international leaders of 1991 left the crisis in Iraq to be dealt with by the next generation of leaders and soldiers?
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Tom Ordeman, Jr. is a technical writer for a major defense contractor in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Feedback: editorialdirector@familysecuritymatters.org.
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