Obama's Afghan surge offers more of the same

The Obama Administration, mirror imaging the previous administration, has decided upon another escalation in response to this strategic stalemate. In so far as the Afghan war goes, the more things change the more things stay the same.

The Bush Administration's response to the Taliban insurgency in the south, which came after years of neglect, had actually fuelled the insurgency given the wanton use of military power. This has made the foreign troop presence in Afghanistan deeply unpopular.

The escalation in the conflict has also seen public opposition against the war rise in the West. It is highly significant that the escalating conflict is increasing popular opposition to the war in both Afghanistan and the West. This tells us something about democracy, both over here and over there.

The war has also been taken into Pakistan, especially through missile attacks from drone aircraft. The Pakistani Army has also launched a large ground offensive along the border areas in a co-ordinated offensive with the US known as Operation Lionheart.

One US drone attack on a Pakistani Madrassa, that killed 80 people, immediately preceded the upsurge in violence in Bajaur Agency. The Mumbai attacks may have been designed to open a new front for the Pakistani Army with India, thereby diverting resources from the Afghan border given the escalation.

Again, despite the escalation of violence, the cycle shows no signs of abating.

The joint US-Pakistani military offensive threatens to undermine the legitimacy of the fledgling government in Pakistan, bringing the nuclear armed nation to the brink of collapse for this offensive is also deeply unpopular. The prospect of nuclear terrorism is often cited in support of escalation. However, this escalation can only increase the probability that Pakistan will become a failed state. Should Pakistan go over the edge it cannot be excluded that its nuclear weapons would most likely fall into the “wrong hands”.

As the US and Pakistan escalate the conflict, the al-Qaida-Taliban alliance is further cemented; on the logic that the Taliban would elect to maintain a strategic relationship with al-Qaida in order to meet a common foe.

The escalation in the conflict will inevitably see to it that more innocent people are killed, and more refugees will abandon areas already racked by war. The Bajaur offensive inside Pakistan has seen at least 250,000 flee to Peshawar.

In 1985 Gorbachev told Karmal in Kabul to "forget socialism" and reach out to Islamists and moderate elements in the Afghan resistance. This would outflank the more extreme elements, Gorbachev advised.

Arguments made in Australia that increasing the tempo in Afghanistan is needed to defend Australia from terrorism are fanciful. For Canberra, one of the main factors revolves around the strategic relationship with Washington. The Prime Minister has long stated that allies can disagree and there are times when Australia can caution the US on the follies of military action.

This is just such a time.

Rather than escalate the conflict President Obama would do well to heed Gorbachev's advice, pull-out of Afghanistan and enable a broader based government, including elements from the Taliban, to be established under a completely reconfigured international presence.

In addition, a comprehensive strategy designed to address the human security needs of the people of the region would do more to destabilise al-Qaida's alliance with the Taliban and to stabilise both Pakistan and Afghanistan than more troops, artillery, and aircraft.

The coalition strategy for Afghanistan seems to involve nothing more than Tacitus' famous refrain on the Roman conquest of Britain: "they created a desolation and called it peace."