Potential Afghanistan Tipping Point?

AFGHANISTAN: “We’re Sick of War: A Taliban Leader Risks His Life to Point Out a New Route to Peace,” by Tom Coghlan, London Times, 15 April 2009

Facing another bloody summer of fighting in Helmand province, the Taliban commander uttered words that could cost him his life. “We all want peace. We want to put down our guns,” he said quietly.

As the conflict enters its eighth summer Nato is hoping that it can exploit such popular disillusion. Mullah Mansoor (not his real name), however, is simply looking for a way out. “Local people do not like the Taliban or the Western forces, they even don’t like us local Taliban” he conceded. “They say to us, ‘if you want to go to Paradise fight in the desert, fight in the mountains but don’t fight in my house’. My wish is just to have peace and security in my area.”

If Mansoor’s position is widely held within the Taliban community, this is the type of fissure that the U.S. military will exploit.

The article states that Mansoor is a “…mid-level Taliban commander,” which begs the question: How widely held is his position within the Taliban?”

There are a number of challenges to solving the AF-PAK problem, every opportunity to create daylight between the Taliban and the people of Afghanistan, and the Taliban and the U.S. goal of a stable region should be exploited. After all, exploiting mid-level leader disenchantment with their current situation is how the Awakening movement started in Iraq.

In non-conventional military operations it is exceedingly difficult to know when and where opportunities for success will present themselves, and even more difficult to measure the effectiveness of those opportunities once identified. It’s difficult to know where the “tipping point” will be reached, and what little pieces of the puzzle will lead to it.

Also see Measuring NATO Effectiveness in Afghanistan?

Holbrooke and Mullen's Af-Pak Trip

Diplomatic: “The Diplomatic Surge: Can Obama’s Team Tame the Taliban?,” by Joe Klein, Time.com, 9 April 2009; “A Short Fuse in Pakistan,” by David Ignatius, Washington Post, 10 April 2009; and “Holbrook of South Asia,” by Matthew Kaminski, Wall Street Journal, 11 April 2009

In a recent trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan (Af-Pak), Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s special envoy to the region, and Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took Obama’s new “regional” Af-Pak strategy to the people of both countries.

What Holbrooke and Mullen learned was not necessarily unique, but what was unique was who they learned it from. Instead of the usual round of private meetings with government officials, which were conducted, additional meetings with farmers, tribal leaders, women legislators, rule-of-law advocates, journalists, the local diplomatic corps, and religious leaders provided the two with the best insight into the complexities of the Af-Pak problem.

What they learned in Afghanistan

• U.S. military plan for developing other than opium crops is undermining a USAID plan to do the same thing
• U.S. Army National Guard farmer-soldier teams are having a positive impact in remote Afghan districts – helping to plant and protect crops
• Afghans believe the Taliban is being supported by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), which is supported by American funding
• There is a growing comparison by the Afghan people of the U.S. military to the Russian military as a result of collateral deaths from air strikes and direct action raids

What they learned in Pakistan

• The Zardari government is unwilling to admit the extent of Pakistan’s terror problem
• U.S. Predator drone strikes are alienating the population
• U.S. should channel aid through the tribal chiefs, rather than the Pakistani government
• U.S. should train the Frontier Corps, rather than rely on the Pakistani army, who are seen as outsiders in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas
• To curb the militant Islamic madrassas, the U.S. should help improve public schools in the region

During the trip, Mullen repeated on multiple occasions, “We’ve developed the best counterinsurgency capability in the world.”

The key tenants of that counterinsurgency capability are to protect the public and build civil order. Exactly the types of things that would resolve the majority of the issues highlighted above.