Email: "WORLD FOCUS: The Musharraf solution"
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In a recent letter to the editor, retired Lt. Col. Robert H. White, who once served as a Special Forces officer, wrote: “The United States should withdraw all military forces from Afghanistan as soon as possible.”


    According to one opinion poll, 57 percent of Americans share this view, while 40 percent still believe that the presence of U. S. forces there is essential to achieve our objectives in the fight against terrorism.


    White argued that, through history, all those powerful nations that became involved in Afghanistan failed to achieve their objectives and departed, leaving no lasting impact. “No matter how long we stay, the eventual result will be the same,” he wrote.


    He asserted that al-Qaeda does not need Afghanistan as a safe haven since it can plan and organize terrorist operations from different countries and locations. That is exactly what al-Qaeda is doing from its safe havens in Pakistan’s northwest frontier provinces. The tribal areas of North and South Waziristan have become a Taliban mini-state where al-Qaeda has found not only a safe haven but is permitted to have training camps for terrorists.


    The Obama administration faces a complex and far-reaching strategic choice  whether to focus on fighting al-Qaeda, or wage a “anti-insurgency” campaign to prevent the Taliban from returning to power in Afghanistan. To achieve this aim would require a substantial enlargement of U.S. forces there.


    Some strategic thinkers recommend an approach they call the “Musharraf solution.”


    After 9/11, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, then-president of Pakistan, sided with the United States against the Taliban. In the ensuing years, the Pakistani Army has often become the target of attacks in the tribal regions. Thus, Gen. Musharraf decided to invoke the rule of the old tribal tradition and made each tribe responsible for the behavior of its members. He declared that those tribes that cooperate with the Pakistani government would be rewarded, and those whose members attack Pakistani forces would be severely punished.


    Musharraf used the old British tactic of arranging temporary truces with various tribes and took advantage of the ever-shifting alliances between tribal leaders. Sure enough, during the current offensive of the Pakistani Army against the Taliban in the Meshud tribal territory, two Waziri commanders who control the territory that surrounds the lands of the Meshud tribe are cooperating with the Pakistani Army.


    The United States used similar tactics in Iraq. It supported the “Awakening” movement, a coalition between Sunni tribal Sheiks in the Anbar Province. The U. S. paid the salaries of the fighters. They were credited with driving out al-Qaeda from the province, and even from Baghdad.


    Today, as the debate rages over Gen. McChrystal’s recommendation to send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, an alternative plan is gaining credence. It posits that if the purpose is to prevent future attacks like 9/11, the United States and its NATO allies first of all must stop being seen as foreign occupiers.


    A position paper on the subject states that the presence of Western forces in Afghanistan provides a key rallying point for the insurgency of the Taliban. To keep Afghanistan from becoming once again a safe haven for al-Qaeda, there is no need to station large ground forces in the country.


    “This can be achieved by a strategy that relies on over-the–horizon air, naval and rapidly deployable ground forces, combined with training and equipping local groups to oppose the Taliban,” wrote Robert A. Pope, the author of “Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.”


    A consensus seems to be developing in Washington that, to achieve our goals, there is no need to station large forces in Afghanistan. Instead, the U. S. should implement on a larger scale the Afghan Social Outreach Program that offers monthly stipends to tribal and local leaders in exchange for their cooperation against the Taliban insurgency.


    Richard Pape wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed: “The United States is going to maintain a strong air and naval presence in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean for many years, and these forces are well suited to attacking terrorist leaders and camps in conjunction with local militia, just as they did against the Taliban and al-Qaeda after 2001.”





Frank Shatz lives in Williamsburg, Va. and Lake Placid. His column was reprinted with permission from The Virginia Gazette.


 


   

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