CristalNacht

I couldn't pass up the pun, although I admit that the Nazi rampage against Jewish shops during the CristalNacht of the 1930's was far more nefarious than President Obama's sacking of General McChrystal. What is now clear is that Afghanistan is Obama's war.

The best comment I have read about the situation appeared in the Wall Street Journal on June 23: a think piece by Elliot A. Cohen who presently teaches at the Johns Hopkins University and who has been a student of wartime leadership issues.

While McChrystal has erred and Cohen opined that he would have to go, he wrote that the problems were not the General's fault. Cohen believes that the Obama administration made three large errors in the conduct of the Afghan war.

First, it assembled a dysfunctional team of McChrystal, Eikenberry and Holbrooke, three quite able men but who, as anyone who knew them would have predicted, could not work together effectively, to carry out the agreed policy. General Eikenberry is a former Army commander in Afghanistan and holds views on the war very different from those of McChrystal. He also loathes Afghan President Karzai. Holbrooke, a diplomatic powerhouse, added yet another layer of command into the already difficult relationships.

Second, the Administration engaged in an excruciating strategy review last fall during which its internal dissensions became public. The leaks from the process revealed that Vice President Biden's view of how to conduct the war differed strongly from those of Secretary of Defense Gates and Secretary of State Clinton. The process was unnerving to the military staffs charged with conducting the war.

Third, and the most damaging, was President Obama's speech at West Point in December 2009 in which he put his own ambivalence about the war on public view and announced that troop withdrawal would begin in July 2011. This blunder demoralized the American side while elating the enemy. They now only have to hang in for another year or so and the Americans will be gone.

General McChrystal's forced resignation perhaps moves to reinstate an American tradition of military deference to civilian authority. But it certainly does nothing to enhance the conduct of what is at best a difficult attempt to bring peace and civility to a badly damaged expanse of territory. Under the best of circumstances Afghanistan presents a difficult situation. It is essentially a failed state with little central authority, little and poor infrastructure, very low levels of human capital and almost nothing that resembles a national identity.

Efforts to build a nation from this melange and at the same time defeat a well established insurgency would tax the resources of any nation. I fear that the results of American efforts will not be pretty. Afghanistan should not be the sole conceern of the US, but I see no movement on the part of NATO allies to become further involved, instead, there appears to be a lessening of support. I do not believe that the American public, especially Obama's liberal supporters, have the patience to put up with a long, difficult and costly exercise for what I think is perceived as little gain.

The countries most at risk are not actually the US but Afghanistan's neighbors, especially Pakistan. Attitudes in Pakistan are clearly ambivalent as the governmenmt strives to contain insurgency and loss of control along its western border, but at the same time resentful of American influence (the US is perceived as anti-Muslim as well)and so it positionins itself to be a factor, at least in southern Afghanistan, when the Americans move out as expected.

Islamic extremists and the export of drugs are no bargains for the "Stans" to the north nor for Russia, but this commonality of risk hasn't evoked much in the way of support for the US, some but not much. A past "cold war" mentality and Russian resentment of its lowered status in world affairs seem to overcome a more realistic view of its true interests in the region.

And so what will be the final output? Who knows, but I can foresee the possibility of a gradual phase out of support from the US and the evolution of some sort of political settlement in Afghanistan that provides cover for a Western exit but leaves Afghanistan essentially unchanged.