Monday, October 06, 2008

The Great Debate

Wow. My lack of motivation seemingly knows no bounds. Couple that with horrendous allergies and you get a very bad blogger.

Not much going on foreign-policy-wise since Wall Street decided to play Russian Roulette with mortgage based securities underpinned by sub-prime loans. But there has been some debatin’ goin’ on, especially around this neck of the woods. I myself got the hell out of Oxford last Friday and missed all the celebs. However, my sister was interviewed by Katie Couric. Wild!

Anyway, last Friday I seemed to sense McCain was going to lay an egg and it would be over; I got the same feeling Thursday night before the VP debate. However, McCain did very well and, in my opinion, won the debate. Palin on the other hand certainly didn’t win but she did perform much better than expected. And so, the McCain Campaign continues to limp on, albeit on life-support.

Substantively, I was very disappointed in the foreign policy debate. McCain’s big plus in this area is his support for the surge. However, he really missed an opportunity to explain exactly why the surge was such a game-changer and how the situation would look if US forces had been withdrawn as Obama proposed. He also really failed to press home how much and how long he has disagreed with Bush over troop levels in Iraq.

Obama’s big blunder was Russia. He seriously seems to have no idea what to do, which is why he chose to talk about pursuing alternative energy instead of discussing containment methods or the status of NATO.

However my biggest complaint is that both campaigns are blowing the Iranian nuclear issue WAY out of proportion and neither camp seems to have a plan for Afghanistan.

Look, Iran may be enriching uranium and they might even make enough to explode a nuclear device, but the road between a nuclear device and a weapon is a long one. The device has to be ruggedized and miniaturized in order to be placed on some type of delivery vehicle. Realistically Iran simply does not have the technological capacity or infrastructure to complete that process without help. Furthermore, even if they do get the technology it’s still going to take a long-ass time to produce a weapon. So while McCain and Obama thunder about Iran, in reality it’s hard to see a nuclear Iran coming to fruition during the next eight years.

However Iran does come into play when it comes to dealing with Iraq and Afghanistan but neither candidate explains the difficulties. To be clear, Irans influence in Iraq is substantial. Prior to surging Iran attempted to curb Sunni influence in Iraq’s security forces in order to prevent a Sunni Iraqi government backed by Washington and thus creating another version of the Hussein regime that had waged war with Iran for years. The surge forced Tehran to reassess its strategy since, due to political agreements between Sunni nationalists and US forces, it became clear that a pro-Iranian government was evaporating. Therefore, Iran decided a coalition government was the best it could hope for and reigned in its Shiite militias. The result is an extremely fragile coalition government that is loyal to neither the US nor Iran but could easily fall apart if the latter decides to press for its pro-Iranian government, especially if US forces are withdrawn prematurely and Iran’s proxy militias are reconstituted. Secondly, Iran also has a huge stake in Afghanistan. Tehran is no friend of the Taliban, having nearly gone to war with them in 1998 after the regime killed several Iranian diplomats and intelligence officers when it attacked the city of Mazar.

So, the next president will need to deal with Iran but it will be quite the tight-rope walk. The US needs to gain a commitment to a neutral Iraq so US forces can be redeployed to Afghanistan, plus a larger commitment to stabilization efforts in Afghanistan, all while discouraging Tehran from nuclear development and entering into an understanding with re-emerging Russia. In order to accomplish all this, a much more stable relationship with Iran will be absolutely critical.

Neither candidate explained how he would approach this situation.

As for Afghanistan, neither side seems to have a clue. Currently US and NATO forces number around 50,000 and both candidates favor increasing force strength. However, the Soviets deployed over 120,000 troops in the 80's and still failed to pacify the country. Currently US forces are essentially implementing a holding action. They are defending the Kabul regime, other major cities and are keeping roads open but they are not winning. Furthermore, Afghanistan has almost zero infrastructure and no major exports to speak of, which will make it difficult to cultivate growth and attract foreign investment.

Aside from economic concerns, the United States faces several significant problems that it must deal with in formulating a policy for Afghanistan. First, the Taliban is essentially the same force Americans faced in 2001. Rather than engage in massed warfare against American airpower, the Taliban simply chose to retreat and redeploy to the countryside in the face of the invasion and thus remains essentially the same force that defeated the Northern Alliance in 1996. This force is fueled by the same vast logistical network that enabled the mujahideen to defeat the Soviets in the 80's and is sheltered by local tribes. Thus in order to neutralize this support, US and NATO forces must break up the logistical network and form some sort of a relationship with local tribes in order to deny the Taliban shelter in some of the most rugged terrain on the planet. Both of these goals will be impossible without help from Pakistan, who remains extremely reluctant to engage due to domestic political considerations.

Realistically, the US might be forced into negotiations with the Taliban in order to form some type of viable coalition government that it can live with before US forces are withdrawn. While this may seem unthinkable, it really is our only option unless we can launch a major offensive against the Taliban that includes Pakistan because we simply don’t have the operational capacity to win on our own.

Of course, we could always just support alternative fuels and I’m sure that would clear everything up.

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