Foreign Policy Bites
01 October 2009 3:44 pm by Taylor Marsh
–updated–
Obama spoke about Iran today, saying Iran must allow “unfettered access” to IAEA inspectors within two weeks.
… First, Iran must demonstrate its commitment to transparency. Earlier this month, we presented clear evidence that Iran has been building a covert nuclear facility in Qom. Since Iran has now agreed to cooperate fully and immediately with the International Atomic Energy Agency, it must grant unfettered access to IAEA inspectors within two weeks. I’ve been in close touch with the head of the IAEA, Mohammed ElBaradei, who will be traveling to Tehran in the days ahead. He has my full support, and the Iranian government must grant the IAEA full access to the site in Qom.
Second, Iran must take concrete steps to build confidence that its nuclear program will serve peaceful purposes — steps that meet Iran’s obligations under multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. The IAEA proposal that was agreed to in principle today with regard to the Tehran research reactor is a confidence-building step that is consistent with that objective -– provided that it transfers Iran’s low enriched uranium to a third country for fuel fabrication. As I’ve said before, we support Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear power. Taking the step of transferring its low enriched uranium to a third country would be a step towards building confidence that Iran’s program is in fact peaceful. [...]
But a senior U.S. diplomat held direct bilateral talks with his Iranian counterpart, something that hasn’t happened since 1979, when the U.S. and Tehran broke off all engagement. So, Pres. Obama puts a “first” in his foreign policy breakthrough category. Clearly, it’s only a beginning, but mark it.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana confirmed that a second meeting would be held and said Iran plans to cooperate “completely and fully” with the IAEA on visiting the Qom site in the “next couple of weeks.”
McChrystal, a COIN man, doesn’t care much for Vice President Joe Biden’s counterterrorism behind the scenes push in Afghanistan.
General McChrystal was asked by a member of an audience that included retired military commanders and security specialists whether he would support an idea put forward by Mr. Biden to scale back the American military presence in Afghanistan to focus on tracking down the leaders of Al Qaeda, in place of the current broader effort now under way to defeat the Taliban.
“The short answer is: no,” he said. “You have to navigate from where you are, not where you wish to be. A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted strategy.”
Chairman of JCS Adm. Mike Mullen and Gen. David Petraeus are with McChrystal, with Mullen on the McCain side of sending more troops. Of course, they’re generals and generals always want maximum troops they can get.
Even SecDef Gates, who chose McChrystal due to his COIN prowess and its purported “success” in Iraq, is tilting towards Biden, who is fulfilling the role Obama always imagined for him as foreign policy consigliere, which on Afghanistan is as tough a job as you can get. Biden wants a counterterrorism strategy, which includes Special Ops forces as well as drones to weed out and kill Taliban, but also al Qaeda. Shorter: big footprint (McChrystal, Mullen, Petraeus) v. small footprint.
To refresh memories, McChrystal’s metrics for Afghanistan (via Laura Rozen) were released in early September.
David Ignatius has a piece up today about his trip into South Waziristan. When reading anything he writes it’s important to realize how connected you have to be to get into this area. Take what he’s writing in that vein.
Laura Rozen captures the quote to explain what’s going on in Afghanistan, which drills down after Galbraith was relieved of his duties.
“The mission is in shambles,” a U.S. diplomat familiar with the UN Afghanistan operation said on condition of anonymity. “The staff is in open rebellion.”
“It is pretty weird that at the United Nations, if you were running around pinching derrieres of female staff, or embezzling funds, it would take months before you were fired,” the diplomat continued. “Or if you were merely incompetent, it could take a year or more. But if you happen to say something is wrong about massive fraud in an election, you’d be gone in a week.”
In CSIS’s “Critical Questions” today, the argument is made for counterterrorism strategy in Afghanistan, Biden’s emphasis that is reportedly winning out, over counterinsurgency (COIN), where Clinton comes down, with CSIS firing rhetorical shots at COIN, in a friendly, think tank way.
Q1: General McChrystal is expected to request up to 40,000 additional troops and recommend a greater focus on counterinsurgency operations. Is this approach likely to succeed in strengthening the Afghan state, defeating the Taliban, and advancing America’s fight against terrorism?
A1: Probably not. Counterinsurgency doctrine, or COIN, has captured the hearts and minds of many in the D.C. policy community. Upon close inspection, however, it becomes clear that COIN, at least as applied to Afghanistan, is built on a number of shaky assumptions. Consider:
§ Even if General McChrystal gets all 40,000 troops he has requested, the combined International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), and Afghan contingent would still number less than 250,000—far fewer than the 670,000 troops the U.S. Army’s own Counterinsurgency Field Manual suggests is necessary to secure a state of Afghanistan’s size.
§ Widespread corruption in the August 20 election has widened the trust gap between the Karzai government and the Afghan people. Because successful counterinsurgency requires a government that is credible and responsive to its citizens, these developments threaten to derail the U.S. and NATO mission. And as our experience in South Vietnam made painfully clear, the White House is usually powerless to force any host nation to enact good-government reforms.
§ General McChrystal’s strategic review emphasizes “population protection” as the key to drying up support for the Taliban. The claim is based on the assumption that insurgencies require the backing, or at least acquiescence, of surrounding communities in order to function. But a recent article in the Washington Post noted that the Taliban rely primarily on foreign, rather than local, funding sources, a fact that suggests that population protection may ultimately do little to diminish the insurgency’s strength.
§ Public support for a counterinsurgency campaign of such massive proportions simply does not exist. Recent polls suggest that over 50 percent of Americans are against sending more troops to Afghanistan. And our European allies are even less enthusiastic about escalating the war.
§ Finally, the COIN framework is built on the larger assumption that eliminating the Taliban and stabilizing Afghanistan is the best use of American resources in the broader effort to combat terrorism. Al Qaeda’s presence in a pre-9/11, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan has convinced many officials that a Taliban takeover would result in al Qaeda’s inevitable return to the state. But al Qaeda already has established itself in Pakistan’s semi-governed spaces. Along with Taliban and other extremist militants, the group enjoys the relative safety of these territories, where Pakistani sovereignty precludes any substantive U.S. ground force. Even if al Qaeda were to reenter Afghanistan sometime in the future, the United States would face the same basic terrorist threats that it does today. Critics will argue that Afghanistan served as a base and planning center for 9/11. True enough; but al Qaeda, in establishing a presence in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen has already developed numerous “safe havens.” In short, our overwhelming focus on Afghanistan fails to serve a more nuanced counterterrorism strategy that acknowledges the many other areas in which al Qaeda operates.
