How invading Iraq harmed Afghan stabilization

David Rohde and David Sanger have an excellent piece of reporting in today’s NYT, in which they go in some detail into exactly how, from mid-2002 on the Bushites’ decision to invade Iraq distracted resources from the much-needed effort to stabilize Afghanistan.
The NYT also has a pretty good 8-slide graphic display that tracks the degree to which what are described as “terrorist incidents” have risen in Afghanistan through every year since 2002.
The Rohde/Sanger article is titled “How a ‘good war’ in Afghanistan went bad.” Imho, no war is a “good” war. But I’ll let that go for now. (Though it does affect they way one looks at the whole question of “stabilization” in Afghanistan.)
I don’t have time to write anything lengthy here right now, about Afghanistan.
I’ll just note that Rohde and Sanger interviewed a lot of former and current Bush-era US officials connected with the Afghanistan project (though alas, no Afghans), and came up with a fairly damning indictment– from their own words:

    Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended the administration’s policy, saying, “I don’t buy the argument that Afghanistan was starved of resources.” Yet she said: “I don’t think the U.S. government had what it needed for reconstructing a country. We did it ad hoc in the Balkans, and then in Afghanistan, and then in Iraq.”
    In interviews, three former American ambassadors to Afghanistan were more critical of Washington’s record.
    “I said from the get-go that we didn’t have enough money and we didn’t have enough soldiers,” said Robert P. Finn, who was the ambassador in 2002 and 2003. “I’m saying the same thing six years later.”
    Zalmay Khalilzad, who was the next ambassador and is now the United Nations ambassador, said, “I do think that state-building and nation-building, we came to that reluctantly,” adding that “I think more could have been done earlier on these issues.”
    And Ronald E. Neumann, who replaced Mr. Khalilzad in Kabul, said, “The idea that we could just hunt terrorists and we didn’t have to do nation- building, and we could just leave it alone, that was a large mistake.”

Alas, no more time to write here now. Bottom line on the article: the situation– both regarding ongoing mayhem in Afghanistan and regarding past ineptitude in the Bush administration– is just as bad as I thought it was.

37 thoughts on “How invading Iraq harmed Afghan stabilization”

  1. The Dick Cheney shogunate regency did not make a mistake in launching two unnecessary wars of choice against Afghanistan and Iraq. The cabal of crony cretins committed two monstrous crimes.
    If any semblance of justice obtained in this world, then Cheney, Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Feith, et al, would spend the rest of their unnatural lives in Slobodan Milosevich’s old cell at the Hague, with one orange jump suit, one cot, one blanket, and one toilet to share among the lot of them, forever. Oh, yes. And one copy of Jean Paul Sartre’s play “No Exit” to read for inspiration and spiritual solace.

  2. The Rhode/Sanger piece seems to be an argument for more ambitious nation building, more aggressive local counterterrorism measures, and a larger US military presence in Afghanistan (versus an ineffectual NATO.) These according to the piece are the “resources” which the Iraq war has distracted from Afghanistan.
    As far as economic measures go, the article doesn’t go into that very much at all. Maybe it’s because economic “reconstruction” of Afghanistan is a misnomer. Its feeble agrarian economy has depended heavily on foreign aid since well before the Soviet invasion.

  3. Now, at least, the Afghan economy is irrevocably committed to commodity production and the international market. Globalisation, as the Russians will attest, works in marvellous ways.

  4. I am glad to see the New York Times giving a high profile to the current problems in Afghanistan. Obama’s statements, gaffe though they may be, has a positive side effect in reminding people again of the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This fight’s status as a “forgotten war” has allowed the Bush administration to get away with a half assed commitment of an undermanned deployment, heavy dependence on air strikes that cause major losses of civilian life, and disinteresting in talking the corruption problem; all while they pursue their PNAC agendas in Iraq. I’m hoping that these recent events will change the “forgotten” status, making the people in power start actually caring about defeating al-Qaeda and the Taliban and reversing the years of destruction global politics had visited upon Afghanistan.

  6. Does anyone here realize that what going on in Afghanistan is a classic colonial war against tribes who refuse to accept foreign domination.
    I have no love for the Taliban but they are patriots fighting to rid their country of a brutal foreign occupation. No different than the fight against the 1980s Soviet invasion.
    Just as criminal and reprehensible as the invasion of Iraq.

  7. Inkan1969
    This fight’s status as a “forgotten war”
    Inkan1969 they make this war to be forgotten war as they trying with Iraq invasion which terribly went far from their control, here Afghan villagers answers your questions
    HAJI ABDULLAH SALEH : Support for Taleban is coming from countries like Pakistan.There is a big rumour these days that the US is actually helping the Taleban to keep the war going. The Taleban were created by the US and the US has all the powers in the world, so people here find it very difficult to believe that the US can’t take them out. It just doesn’t make sense.
    Crimson Ghost
    they are patriots fighting to rid their country of a brutal foreign occupation.
    Look to this vedio will tels you a lot how hard to keep quite about someone brutal one who come to your land….
    vadim
    a larger US military presence in Afghanistan….”resources” which the Iraq war has distracted from Afghanistan.
    The major resources is the personal, as for Iraq lts take a look to the personal who is on the ground in Iraq now:
    There are now nearly as many private contractors in Iraq as there are U.S. soldiers and a large percentage of them are private security guards equipped with automatic weapons, body armor, helicopters and bullet-proof trucks.
    This bring to our minds 2nd Gulf War back in 1991 when we told that the total US buildup reach to a 211,000.0 Personal to kickback Saddam from Kuwait!!
    If in 1991 US had sent 211,000.0, then the question why US having problems to get the numbers in Iraq or in Afghanistan now?
    Is that 211,000.0 US Solders sent to Saudi who financed and paid by Kuwaitis and Saudis with other Gulf Kingdoms was A FAKE number as Paul Beremr III fake numbers of the Iraq Reconstructions Contractors that caused $10 Billions vanished without trace???

  8. a classic colonial war.
    Right, a colonial war involving no natural resources, no markets & (of course) no colonies. Textbook!

  9. After seeing the brutality of the Taliban regime during its years of rule and the condemnation heaped upon the West for just living with the regime and doing business with it, it’s enraging to read someone trying to make them out into some kind of heroes by calling them “patriots”.

  10. Vadim said :
    Right, a colonial war involving no natural resources, no markets & (of course) no colonies. Textbook!
    Oh.. you are too fast to discard that. The question isn’t only natural ressources, it’s also about transporting natural ressources. There was a project of pipeline thru Afghanistan, with Russian, French, German and other interests. BUt US was cut of it. They tried to get the Talibans to comply but to no avail.. That was already before 9/11. So they took this pretext to invade. (I have seen a map of this pipeline project which was important for the Russians but disagreed the US; if I can find a link I’ll post it).
    Once again, you can’t fight terrorism with a conventional war. This a police work and an intelligence work. If the US chose to bomb, it was for another reason.
    Then concerning the Taliban regime : you won’t find many in the West agreeing with their philosophy, but the inhabitants of a country have a right to defend themselves and fight against invaders.

  11. Regarding the brutality of the Taliban:
    Just yesterday I was listening to a report which showed that, thanks to the deadly brutality of the American military most Afghans want the Americans out of their country. That way at least they only have the Taliban and the Northern Alliance to deal with instead of those two PLUS the Americans.
    What a sad, terrible set of choices they have been given.

  12. The Taliban and al-Qaeda were intertwined; a police solution is implausible if the whole police structure has been corrupted. Pipeline conspiracy theories have never had any stronger evidence than post-hoc reasoning: the U.S. government was in negotiation with the Taliban over a pipeline, then later the U.S. invaded, therefore the first event caused the second event. For this pipeline project being so important, surprisingly little progress has been made on it since 2001.
    Shirin, “most” is an inexact word. That word can be abused; you want to believe people are a certain way, so you say that “most people are like that”. What objections do exist against U.S and NATO troops result from the lack of serious commitment described in the NYT article; if the U.S./NATO had sent a sufficient number of troops they wouldn’t be depending on these deadly airstrikes, and if the U.S. had a serious commitment to Afghan reconstruction corruption wouldn’t be such a big problem. We need an administration that takes the commitment to Afghanistan seriously, to actually deliver on the security and stability Afghans want.

  13. Here is a map of the pipeline projected by the Russians and with the agreement of the Talibans. It was supposed to bring hydrocarbons from Russia and the formers soviet union republic to the Indian sea.
    Also this was supposed to bring hydrocarbons to the new port installation of Gwadar which is actually built with CHinese funds. This port would allow the Chinese to get an access to ME oil without the need to pass thru the straights of Hornuz which are controlled by the US. It is quite clear that by invading Afghanistan, the US has stopped a project which would have been convenient to both the Russians and the Chinese.
    The whole cartographic report can be seen here (it was about Balouchistan, a province of Pakistan).

  14. There was a project of pipeline thru Afghanistan, with Russian, French, German and other interests. BUt US was cut of it.
    Christiane, you have your theories mixed up. Ken Silverstein (a left wing journalist who writes for counterpunch and the american prospect) has thoroughly covered – and debunked– this pipeline nonsense (which originally involved Unocal in partnership with the Taliban and some other governments.)
    http://www.thebostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/multi-page/documents/02388257.htm
    Still, no energy company in the world would sink billions of dollars in an explosive compressed natgas pipeline –for no economic purpose– thru mountainous terrain crawling with guerrillas, which is one of the reasons why it isn’t taking place today.

  15. “Most” means simply more than half. Don’t try to complicate it more than that. And the reasons that matter are not the self-serving ones you manage to concoct by means of twisted facts and tortured logic, but the ones provided by the Afghans themselves. Like the Iraqis, they are sick and tired of dealing with “liberators” who kill and maim and destroy.

  16. Just yesterday I was listening to a report which showed that, thanks to the deadly brutality of the American military most Afghans want the Americans out of their country. That way at least they only have the Taliban and the Northern Alliance to deal with instead of those two PLUS the Americans.
    Shirin I don’t know where you get your news, but the “Northern Alliance” hasn’t existed for years. Furthermore most non-Afghan combat units in Afghanistan are not US forces at all but ISAF troops under NATO command.

  17. Vadim,
    The “Northern Alliance” does not exist as an entity, but the same warlords are still very much alive and still very much making life – and death – miserable for Afghans. And these are the guys the Americans supported as allies, of course.
    It seems the American forces are NOT operating under NATO command in any real way, and, in fact, many if not most (that would be most as in more than half) of the NATO commanders are, in fact, Americans. According to the report I heard yesterday, the NATO people are very frustrated and unhappy with the brutal approach of the Americans, saying it is making it impossible for them to gain the trust of the Afghan people, who understandably lump all the foreign forces together as one.

  18. Shirin, like I said, U.S. troops depend too much on airstrikes that have been causing so many civilian deaths. This airstrike dependence is what the NATO officials are so frustrated about and what’s causing the “kill, maim and destroy” you refer to but keep pretending that it’s something different from I’m talking about. I do want a change in tactics to depend much more on an adequate number of foot soldiers, and to follow NATO’s strategies of earning people’s trust through cooperation and enforcement of security.

  19. U.S. had a serious commitment to Afghan reconstruction corruption wouldn’t be such a big problem.
    Inkan1969, Good argument and sure is a valid one. It’s the same fault US did and doing in Iraq.
    Although the number of troops its can be very critical for US, but it’s not a main factor what’s went wrong in both cases (Afghanistan, Iraq).
    If US has the commitments to Afghanis and Iraqis, they should use the local peoples/Military, police to help them in helping the locals, this will credits US of wining the confidence of the locals, this will be very broad massage that tells them more than putting such government telling them they working for them but deeply in their harts they see this structure of state as a fake not reflecting their wish and desire.
    This take us to the lesson from US history of invasions, when US went to Japan they did not dismantled the Japanese Military force but they used them for helping in serving the civilians and reconstruction for putting back the public services back to return the country to normality after years of war all the country resources was devoted for that war machine and system.

  20. These are the killer machine that are not hold accountable of their crimes in both Afghanistan and Iraqi under the constitutions and laws orders with immunity from prosecutions of killing any numbers of civilians in both countries.
    If you think the U.S. has only 160,000 troops in Iraq, think again.
    With almost no congressional oversight and even less public awareness, the Bush administration has more than doubled the size of the U.S. occupation through the use of private war companies.
    There are now almost 200,000 private “contractors” deployed in Iraq by Washington. This means that U.S. military forces in Iraq are now outsized by a coalition of billing corporations whose actions go largely unmonitored and whose crimes are virtually unpunished.
    The Mercenary Revolution
    By JEREMY SCAHILL

  21. Inkan, what you are talking about IS something different from what I am talking about. I am talking about how the Afghan people feel and what they want. YOU are talking about – in fact you seem for all the world to be making excuses for – the Americans horribly brutal, deadly, and destructive actions.
    You see? I am discussing things from the Afghans’ point of view, as expressed by Afghan people. You are “explaining” why you believe the American military is using the tactics that are making the Afghans feel as they do. Do you see the difference?
    And by the way, I doubt very much that you would find much sympathy or understanding among Afghans for the U.S. military’s “dilemma”.

  22. Inkan1969
    I do want a change in tactics to depend much more on an adequate number of foot soldiers,
    There is no rocket science or need for genius mind to understand.put yourself in their shoses and see what you do then!
    Take your troops out of Iraq or Afghanistan go home that will solve their problems all around
    “Meeting Resistance”

  24. Afghanistan never has had very much in the way of economic surpluses to tempt foreign invaders, and yet, because of its strategic importance it has, at least since Alexander’s day, attracted Imperialists for reasons that I am surprised someone as sharp as Vadim cannot see.

  28. I am talking about how the Afghan people feel and what they want…I am discussing things from the Afghans’ point of view, as expressed by Afghan people.
    “The Afghan people” are blessed to have such forceful advocates living here in the US, interpreting and representing how they feel and what they want. It’s very generous of you to act as a cultural translator Shirin, and of course I’m impressed as always by your apparent command of Pashto and Dari. I understand those are some tough languages to master.
    For a somewhat different perspective, there’s this study put out last year by the Asia Foundation. It’s the largest public opinion survey ever conducted in Afghanistan, the result of over 6,000 face to face interviews. Surprisingly, there’s very little of the jejune anti-Americanism, nostalgia for the Taliban, talk of “brutal foreign occupation” [by 40 countries under UN aegis], or similar representations we’ve seen here.
    An overwhelming majority (87%) expressed trust in the (ex-Northern Alliance, ISAF-supported) Afghan National Army. Among factors hindering Afghan development “too many foreigners” was cited by only 15% of respondents. Public perceptions of security were favorable (even as terrorist attacks on urban areas and Taliban raids continued to take place during this period.)
    Actually every measure of public welfare has improved sharply since the ‘brutal occupation’ began — GDP, infant mortality, crop yields, you name it. It’s bizarre to see anyone claiming that the Taliban ouster and NATO-administered reconstruction have been anything but a strong net positive for Afghanistan — but when all you have is a hammer, I suppose everything looks like a nail. It illustrates the shallowness of Americaphobia as an all-purpose political principle.
    bevin, earlier you mentioned that Afghanistan is condemned to “commodity production and the international market” — I have to ask — just what commodity are you talking about? And if these “imperial interests” are so obvious, why aren’t they being pursued by the United States, which stations such a small percentage –less than 10% — of its combat forces there, under foreign control?

  30. Re: commodity production
    I understand the tulip crop in Afghanistan has been thriving recently.
    The irony of it: war on terror undermines war on drugs. More unintended consequences…
    The point is not idealization of the rule of the Taliban based on a misplaced sense of “Americaphobia”, but it is, rather, invading Iraq harmed Afghan stabilization.
    The reflexive disagreement seems silly.

  31. I understand the tulip crop in Afghanistan has been thriving recently.
    I think you mean poppy. The tulips are in Holland — along with a lot of the heroin. Personally I think the international community should try to find a legal use for Afghanistan’s opium crop, or like Holland abandon interdiction in favor of therapy. Terrorism is a more serious problem than heroin abuse. Whatever flowers Afghan farmers choose to cultivate is none of my business.
    The reflexive disagreement seems silly.
    What I find “reflexive” (and more than a little frustrating) is the mode of discussion that frames all political behavior solely in terms of the USA, where all other political actors are either quislings, dupes or victims. Silly, reflexive, procrustean, paternalistic and quite jejune!
    Here it’s also incoherent, since the article under discussion laments the US’ lack of manpower on the ground in Afghanistan. I don’t believe for a second that Helena sides with David Sanger in wishing for more aggressive US nation building, do you? Like many here, she opposed the use of force in Afghanistan. Properly she should be defending the status quo ante bellum (good luck!), or like Shirin demanding the US pull out of Afghanistan altogether.

  32. Personally I think the international community should try to find a legal use for Afghanistan’s opium crop
    Well vadim, when Taliban was in power they managed to reduced the production to very minim levels, and at that time they asked “international community” as UN already have its program to help farmers who move from farming Opium and to help the farmers to farm alternative crops so that help them due course of transformations for normal farming products which more helpful for local communities. What “international community” and UN did NOTHING, UN did not pay any aids to help Afghani farmers, and i.e. the UN and international community punished them!!!
    If you asking for legal use of opium then this will goes to the pocket of warlords as we see in any conflicts zone.
    BTW, Reports from southern Iraq, some gangs/ Warlords /Foreigners Gangs start taking Iraq farms and converted to Opium farms!! Sadly those land had very rich soil and it’s the best Iraq farms for producing Iraqi rice (Amber/Jasmine rice, I beat any one if can get like Iraqi Amber rice).

  37. Every one looking for his own Bear even it’s dead,
    “The Shiite man, who took Nivat around for her two weeks in Baghdad, in one of the more devastating quotes to come out of the capital in recent times, told her: “My uncles and cousins were murdered by Saddam’s regime. I wanted desperately to get rid of him. But today, if Saddam’s feet appeared in front of me, I would fall to my knees and kiss them!”
    http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174827/michael_schwartz_benchmarking_iraq_for_disaster

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