Mike Crowley flags the latest opinions of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is speaking out against plans to send 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan, beginning with 4,000 scheduled to arrive early this spring. Karzai also strongly condemns the idea, borrowed from Iraq, that empowering local militias will be an effective counter-insurgency tactic. Though his statements may be intended to serve his own internal political purposes -- Karzai is running for another term as president next year -- his critique should still give Americans pause. Karzai's concerns, which include civilian casualties and dropping public approval of the presence of U.S. forces, also hit on a major strategic problem: If U.S. forces are deployed for COIN purposes inside Afghan provinces, how does that achieve American goals in the region? And what, incidentally, are American goals in the region? Heres' a recent interview with the Afghan president:
Q: How will more troops solve the problems in Afghanistan?
A: Sending more troops to the Afghan cities, to the Afghan villages, will not solve anything. Sending more troops to control the border, is sensible, makes sense. Sending more troops to help the Afghans regain the territories that we had, in that by making terrible mistakes we lost to the Taliban, makes sense. That is where I need help. I don't need help anywhere else.
Q: But the U.S. is talking about sending the bulk of 4,000 troops to Wardak and Logar provinces, just outside Kabul, next month. What do you think about that?
A: I don't think we need forces there. I think we need them on the border and I think we need them especially to bring [southern] Helmand [province] back under the control of the Afghan people and the Afghan law.
As momentum towards redeployment continues to build, voices like Karai's shold spur U.S. officials towards a fundamental review of their approach to Afghanistan. And incidentally, this quote from that Karzai interview really captures the weird dynamic between U.S. and its various client leaders:
There are days that you speak louder than softer or lower. At times the American leadership has tolerated my extreme harsh talk, and I am grateful to them for that. And at times, I have tolerated their lack of knowledge and lack of information on Afghanistan.
--Tim Fernholz
