Yesterday, President Barack Obama held the first meeting of his military cabinet. Expectations are huge; among those in attendance was Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in chief of Centcom and the officer who will be responsible for the Obama administration's strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For some insight into what Gen. Petraeus expects from President Obama, I spoke with a friend of his; Col. Peter Mansoor (Ret)., a key adviser who served two tours in Iraq. Mansoor is the author of Baghdad at Sunrise and an architect of the counterinsurgency doctrine that proved successful in Iraq. Mansoor is now a professor of history at Ohio State University.
What do you think Gen. Petraeus, or any general in this situation, would want to hear from a new president?
I think Gen. Petraeus will want to hear, "Mr. President, what's the mission. What do you want the military forces in the central command area to do." He probably would rather hear that then "send four brigades to Afghanistan. or I want to withdraw from Iraq in 16 months," or some of these specific things. He would probably rather hear the President sat that it's my intention to draw down combat forces as quickly as possible while maintaining the ability to train and equip the Iraqi security forces and keep a lid of sectarian violence as the provincial and national elections occur. It's my intention to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan, reverse the spiral downward and conduct a counterinsurgency campaign in order to reinforce the legitimacy of the Afghan government in Kabul." And then, in return, the military can say, here are two or three courses of actions, associated with timelines and risks associated of withdrawing more quickly from Iraq and not reinforcement more quickly in Afghanistan.
It's almost cliché now to say that the geography and history of Afghanistan are so qualitatively different from Iraq. The type of clear-and-hold approach that worked in urban centers in Iraq obviously would have to be revised significantly?
Clear and hold can still work, but it's of a different magnitude, because Afghanistan has a lot more people, it's very mountainous with a very poor communications strategy
Is it workable?
It can in most of the country, a and I've never been to Afghanistan, and that's why it's still a question mark, is whether are the Pashtun tribal people amenable to reconciliation in some sort of political framework where they remain part of a larger Afghanistan governed by whoever's in power in Kabul.
Doesn't that all depend on the Pashtuns in the ISI in Pakistan who're helping Pashtuns in Afghanistan? You can't just treat the Pashtuns in Afghanistan in isolation.
Clearly, the Pashtun tribe straddles the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. That tribe has to be dealt with in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, and so Pakistan is clearly part of the solution to the solution in Afghanistan. There are very few insurgencies with a major sanctuary across the border like the FATA, where the counterinsurgents are successful because the insurgents have the ability to ramp up whenever they want to by infiltrating across the border. My question is more funfdamental than that; even if you're able to work counterinsurgency with the Pakistani army, are the Pashtu's people amenable to a political solution to their grievances in the current state structure that exists in southwest Asia. I don't know the answer to that question.
It's been a long time, in some quarters, since Americans have paid close attention to the political progress and the level of violence there. It's a very basic question: what's happening in Iraq right now, and how will those conditions influence what Gen. Petraeus recommends to President Obama?
Well, the key thing that's happening in Iraq right now are provincial elections, which are set for the end of February, and the national; elections, which are possibly taking place later this year. The Sunnis have agreed to take part in these elections in a free and fair manner. So, for the first time since the fall of Baghdad in 2003, they're going to have democratic elections where all the different parties, factions, ethnicities and sects in Iraq have agreed to take part. This, of course, is if the elections are held in a free and fair and transparent member. if the results are accepted by the Iraqis as a valid election, and there's not a lot of quibbling over the numbers, these elections have the capability of ushering in a more legitimate government where power and resources are spread over segments parts of Iraqi society thereby giving the new government that can truly chart a way forward for all Iraqis. We can then get beyond the perception that the government in Baghdad is merely a Shiite sectarian government which is governing for the benefit of its own sect to the detriment of the Kurds and the Sunnis.
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