As we consider the Defense Department appropriations bill, the most important question we face concerns our military operations in Afghanistan. That is why I have filed an amendment which commends the President for focusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan and for developing a comprehensive, inter-agency strategy for the region. It also expresses the Sense of the Senate that the President should provide Congress and the American people with some basic information before he authorizes any potential increase in troop levels in Afghanistan. In particular, it urges the President to inform Congress how much such an increase would cost, how long he expects it to last, the likelihood that it will have any impact on our ability to confront the al Qaeda safe haven in Pakistan, and the likelihood that it will actually destabilize one or both countries. I realize that we cannot know these things with absolute certainty, but we should have some idea of the expected costs, duration, and likelihood of success or failure before embarking on such a significant undertaking. The President should not send tens of thousands of brave young men and women into harm’s way, if he so decides, without first answering these questions, and Congress should not support such a decision without first obtaining this information.
My amendment, which is non-binding, does not attempt to pressure the President to make a decision about troop levels. I, for one, am pleased to see that this administration is apparently asking some very tough questions about our Afghan strategy. I think it is unfortunate that some, including in this body, have suggested that any delay in responding to Gen. McChrystal’s request is unacceptable. The stakes are too high for a rushed decision, and not only for the troops who could be deployed. After 8 long years of war, we need to question all our assumptions and re-think our approach from top to bottom. What was possible and desirable five or even two years ago may now be neither. Getting Afghanistan right has serious implications for our national security, and the answers to the questions I raise in my amendment will help us, and the people we represent, to know whether we have done so.
Eight years ago, I voted in favor of the authorization to use military force against those who planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks. Since then, I have remained focused on that goal and have noted with alarm the resiliency of al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan and its growing footholds in Yemen, Somalia, North Africa and elsewhere. The decision to go to war in Iraq was a tragic mistake that undermined our ability to go after al Qaeda. That initial mistake was compounded by flawed thinking as too many people focused narrowly on “getting Iraq right” without realizing that the key to getting Iraq right was to place it in the context of a comprehensive, global strategy to defeat al Qaeda. So, too, we cannot simply focus on getting Afghanistan right – we need to make sure that our Afghan approach is part of, and contributes to, that broader strategy I just mentioned.
This administration sees that bigger picture, which is why it has begun to redeploy troops from Iraq, though not as quickly as I would prefer. And President Obama has brought needed focus and attention to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, but I am concerned that our current and proposed military strategy in Afghanistan may play into al Qaeda’s hands. Our current approach has mobilized a tribal network in the Afghan-Pakistan border region that does not share al Qaeda’s international terrorist agenda but nonetheless opposes our massive military presence in the region. It has driven people into the arms of the Taliban even while Taliban and al Qaeda leadership remains out of reach in Pakistan. And it risks further destabilizing Pakistan, a nuclear armed country where al Qaeda is now based. Rather than continue down this road, we need a smart, targeted strategy to pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leadership without provoking further militancy in both countries.
Our enemy is agile. It has a network that spans the globe, receives financing from individuals around the world and has a presence in even the most developed nations. We have expanded our ability to go after these networks, working with allies and cutting off the flow of funds. Chasing after elusive Taliban foot soldiers in Afghanistan will not defeat al Qaeda; rather, we must use all elements of our national power to target al Qaeda without getting bogged down in massive military operations with unrealistic goals and potentially dangerous unintended consequences.
Armed nation-building in a country hostile to foreign interventions and with a feckless, corrupt central government is at best an experiment and at worst a dangerous distraction. Rather than looking desperately for a quick fix to the problems that plague that country, we must acknowledge the limits of our ability to radically remake Afghan society no matter how many billions of dollars and tens of thousands of troops we may commit to the cause. Instead, we should pursue a sustainable, civilian-focused strategy to support the emergence of legitimate governance. This is the surest way to defeat the Taliban in the long term.
Unfortunately, while the decision to go to war in Afghanistan was the right one, the exigencies of our military operations are now undermining our ability to help promote such legitimate governance. We have looked the other way when our supposed allies committed human rights abuses, sold drugs or embraced corruption. As Gen. McChrystal stated in his assessment, we have embraced “problematic” relationships with “polarizing and predatory” power brokers, including in the Afghan National Security Forces, who “have been major agents of corruption.” He reported that “extortion associated with large-scale development projects undermines the economy in Afghanistan.” Additionally, he notes, the Afghan public “perceives that ISAF is complicit in” in the abuse of power and corruption.
Some who want to persist with our current strategy are calling for a rapid increase in the size of the Afghan security forces. But without a legitimate, functioning national government, a rapid expansion of these forces is likely to provoke further instability. Currently, the only face of the Afghan government in many parts of the country is the Afghan police force which is itself beset by corruption.
While our current strategy depends upon our ability to address the corruption that plagues the Afghan government, no one has explained how we can achieve this goal. With the input of millions of dollars, international pressure and additional U.S. troops, we did not even have the ability to prevent wide-scale fraud in the recent presidential election. In the absence of a legitimate local partner, our counterinsurgency goals, while perhaps laudable, appear unrealistic.
Rather than further aligning ourselves with this badly flawed government, we should focus on targeting our aid to those actually working to promote good governance and the rule of law. This does not require a massive military presence. Indeed, attempting to accelerate this process with an increase in U.S. troop levels may well be counterproductive. Countries are typically built by their own people, over time, through a process of building a national consensus. This cannot be imposed by foreigners, especially when they are active participants in an ongoing war in a country that is highly resistant to foreign occupation. And we cannot afford to link this lengthy and unpredictable process to an open-ended and unsustainable military escalation.
Gen. McChrystal has argued that we should significantly increase our military resources in Afghanistan for the purpose of “protecting” the Afghan population. However, he acknowledges that, if we endorse his proposal, it “is realistic to expect that Afghan and coalition casualties will increase.” This doesn’t make sense. Occupying the population centers of southern Afghanistan is likely to provoke greater resentment and increase the danger to our troops and to the Afghan public. The majority of Afghans oppose an increase in foreign troops and want to see foreign troops leave the country within two years. Without giving the American and Afghan people a sense that our military operations will not go on indefinitely, we are unlikely to gain the support needed to accomplish our goals, particularly if we know going in that civilian casualties will only increase in the short term. That is why I have called for a flexible timetable to draw down our troop presence in Afghanistan.
Mr. President, rather than risking more American lives and spending more American dollars in support of an illegitimate partner in Afghanistan, we must find a way to relentlessly pursue al Qaeda without further destabilizing Afghanistan and its nuclear-armed neighbor. Our massive, open-ended military footprint is not only unnecessary and unlikely to accomplish this goal, it may well be counterproductive.
Now, some will argue that anything short of a troop escalation means “abandoning” Afghanistan. That same argument was made about Iraq, and it is just as phony now as it was then. The question is not about abandoning Afghanistan, it is about correctly defining and achieving our goals there. Unlike Iraq, we also hear arguments pointing out that the 9/11 attacks were launched from Afghanistan, which is absolutely true. But the leaders of al Qaeda and the leaders of the Taliban are in Pakistan, they are not in Afghanistan. We should be concerned about al Qaeda potentially re-establishing a safe haven in Afghanistan, but we should be even more concerned about al Qaeda’s current safe haven in Pakistan. Pakistan is home to a witches’ brew of militancy, radicalism, terrorism, nuclear weapons and weak civilian leadership, and getting this country right will be even more challenging – and more important – than Afghanistan.
Our primary goal should be to help support the emergence of a civilian government in Pakistan that is effective, democratic and a reliable partner. It has been widely reportedly that elements of the Pakistani security services continue to provide support to militants. Our ability to pressure the Pakistani security forces to hold those elements accountable is undermined by our focus on military operations in Afghanistan, specifically our dependence upon our supply line running through Pakistan. Some have suggested that if we redeploy troops from Afghanistan, the Pakistanis will decide we aren’t committed to the region, and we will lose what leverage we have over them. In fact, we should consider whether drawing down our troops in Afghanistan would help enable us to deal with Pakistan from a position of strength.
The Director of National Intelligence summarized the depth of the problem earlier this year during his testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He stated that:
No improvement in the security in Afghanistan is possible without . . . Pakistan taking control of its border areas and improving governance, creating economic and educational opportunities throughout the country. . . . [M]ounting economic hardships and frustration over poor governance have given rise to greater radicalization. . . . Islamabad needs to make painful reforms to improve overall macroeconomic stability. . . . Among the needed reforms are measures to improve the transparency of government expenditures and impose taxes on wealthy landowners. Such reforms would reduce the opportunities for corruption among Pakistani political leaders, help to establish a more level political playing field, and help build the confidence of average Pakistanis in their government.
As Admiral Blair’s testimony illustrates, militancy in the region stems from an incredibly complicated set of problems, few of which are amenable to a military solution. Now that the United States is focused on its relationship with the civilian government in Pakistan – after too many years in which we placed all our chips on an unreliable, unpopular and undemocratic strong man -- we are finally on the right track, trying to support the emergence of a legitimate government that, in the long run, is more likely to support our counterterrorism goals and provide the stability that country needs.
Progress on this front, however, may well be compromised by our massive presence in Afghanistan. During a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, former British foreign service officer, Rory Stewart testified that “U.S. operations in Afghanistan may, in fact, contribute to the destabilization of Pakistan.” Special Envoy Holbrooke and Adm. Mullen have also acknowledged to me in appearances before the Foreign Relations Committee that there is a danger that our operations in Afghanistan will further destabilize Pakistan by pushing militants into that country. We must carefully consider the alternatives before we pursue a significant escalation in Afghanistan that is not likely to fix the governance problems in that country or to address the al Qaeda presence in Pakistan, and that could further destabilize the entire region.
Over the last eight years, we have committed tremendous resources in an effort to dramatically rework Afghan society. We have doubled our troops levels over the past year and, this year alone, we will spend over $50 billion in that country. This has already become the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Rather than doubling down on a strategy with objectives that may well be unachievable, we should focus on relentlessly pursuing al Qaeda’s network in Pakistan and around the world, and set realistic goals for providing civilian assistance to legitimate actors within the Afghan and Pakistani governments. My amendment asks tough questions about any potential military escalation to ensure that we carefully consider the costs of the proposed strategy, its likelihood of achieving our counterterrorism goals, the potential pitfalls and the alternatives. I hope my colleagues will ask themselves these questions as they consider whether to support the underlying bill, which funds a military approach in Afghanistan that is badly in need of re-thinking.
