However, I would suggest that the President also strongly consider resetting U.S. foreign policy since right now, it is a disaster. Consider:
- An article in the November 26, 2010 issue of The Week magazine talked about the rising problems and conflicts we are having with the government of Afghanistan President Karzai. Recently, Karzai unexpectedly called for the NATO troops, fighting to protect his government, in Afghanistan to stop combat initiatives in southern Afghanistan that have led to the capturing or deaths of hundreds of Taliban fighters. Since the Taliban stronghold is in southern Afghanistan and our troops look like they are having some degree of success in fighting the enemy, the Taliban, why would we do this? And more importantly, why would Karzai want us to do that?
Thus, we are fighting hard, spending money and soldiers lives to fight the enemy and now we are told by the very people we are supposedly fighting for to stop fighting. Worse yet, recent NATO and U.S. negotiations have established 2014 as the target date to turn over the fighting responsibilities to the Afghan forces, meaning another four years of wasted resources for a government that is by far one of the most corrupt in the world and which is led by someone who may just be stringing us along for their own protection and power.
The current U.S. foreign policy strategy of starting to bring U.S. troops home in July, 2011 is now out the window, leaving us with a muddling through to a nebulous disengagement date with a corrupt partner somewhere down the road, beyond the 2012 elections. As a result, more money wasted, more lives lost as the Afghan foreign policy continually drifts.
- On a related matter, consider an article in the Briefing section of November 26, 2010 issue of The Week magazine. This article did an in-depth analysis of the Pakistani government's ISI organization, the Directorate of Inter-Services. ISI is basically comparable to our CIA with a little bit of our Defense Department's Defense Intelligence Agency thrown it. The difference with our CIA, however, is that while the ISI is theoretically under civilian government control. the ISI pretty much does whatever it wants to do. It is has resisted all attempts to reign in its power, it is suspected of assassinating Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and it is believed to have been behind the 2008 terror raids in Mumbai, India that killed almost 200 people.
What is their relationship to the conflict in Afghanistan? According to the article, the ISI realizes that they will be around long after U.S. and NATO forces leave Afghanistan. Supporting the Taliban stationed in Pakistan gives the ISI leverage over the future status and government of Afghanistan. The article cites a London School of Economic report that found the ISI funds and trains Taliban fighters and even sends some of its agents to Taliban leadership meetings. The ISI also allows Taliban and al Qaida leaders to move freely about the country, with some sources claiming that Bin Laden and other terror leaders live comfortably in ISI safe houses.
As this wing of the Pakistani government supports the very people our soldiers are trying to defeat, the U.S. government continues to send billions of dollars of military aid to the the same government, including an announced two billion dollar deal last week. Thus, our current foreign policy in the area puts us between a rock and a hard place, i.e. we are being played for suckers everywhere. The Pakistan government knows we need them to logistically supply our troops in Afghanistan and plays on our fear that Bin Laden and the sort might re-emerge to take back power in Afghanistan. At the same time, the same government's agencies are supporting the Taliban in case they ever regain power rather than being true to our needs and agreements of destroying them and the terrorists among them.
Combine this situation with the previous points above, where Karzai is also playing both sides, wanting us to be successful enough to keep him in power but not so successful that we win the conflict and go home by hamstringing our fighting forces. Dealing with two timing friends with little leverage at all makes for a very weak foreign policy strategy.
There appears to be only two foreign policy strategies. Either you go all out and win the war, which probably involves bypassing both the Afghan and Pakistani governments altogether, and militarily go after the Taliban and terrorists wherever they are. This would include both the southern part of Afghanistan and the northwest haven corner of Pakistan. The problem with this strategy is that we would be violating sovereign space of a country (Pakistan) and we would have to find a way to supply our troops without Pakistan's help. Additionally, we would suffer an increase in battle field deaths and wounded as we finally took the fight to the enemy.
The second alternative is to just get out now, minimizing our loses. We need to recognize that there are forces in both countries that want us on their terms and for their reward, not for our goals and aims. If that situation is not going to change, then we will continue to be in this no-man's ground with little leverage to succeed. Time to reset this entire operation and do it before 2012, regardless of whose political career is endangered. U.S. solidiers' lives should always override political careers.
- Staying in the Middle East, another article from The Week magazine, this one also from the November 26, 2010 issue, discussed the latest peace initiatives between Israel and the Palestinians. In order to keep the endangered peace process moving along, the United States recently agreed to supply $3 billion in military aid to Israel and would commit to oppose any international recognition of a unilaterally declared Palestinian state if only the Israeli government agreed to stop constructing new homes in the West Bank for 90 days. The logic is that if the construction was not frozen, the Palestinians would walk out of the talks. The hope, and it is not much more than a hope, is that the 90 day window would allow the talks to move so far forward that by the 91st day the peace talks would have their own momentum.
Serious problems with this U.S. foreign policy strategy. First of all, these two parties have been at each others' throats for 62 years, I find it highly doubtful that a 90 day window is going to make any difference. Second, according to the article, the Israeli government has not yet approved the plan and the Palestinians are balking because the freeze does not include the building of new Israeli homes in Jerusalem. Thus, the two parties might not even agree on the terms of the 90 day freeze, never mind settling the conflicts of 62 years.
The additional problem with this approach is that we are again negotiating from a position of weakness, much like we are in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We beg the Israelis to do a momentary stop to construction in exchange for $3 billion worth of military hardware. After 62 years, a 90 day delay for $3 billion worth of goodies is a great deal for them. Again, we are being played for suckers.
There is only one viable approach to this situation from a U.S. foreign policy perspective: don't do anything until both the Israeli and Palestinian people, not their governments, truly want peace. That is currently not the environment. Rather than have the United States bounce back and forth between both parties, literally begging them to make nice to each other, we need to get out of the way and go home, taking our $3 billion worth of military hardware enticement with us. The U.S. begging has not worked and it weakens our position as a neutral broker if and when the conditions for peace ever did spring up. Let them call us when they are ready, we should not be constantly ringing their doorbells to see if they want to come out and play peace.
- Staying with the November 26, 2010 issue of The Week magazine, a short blurb discussed the fact that it was unlikely that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the planner of the 9-11 attacks, would be put on trial prior to the next U.S. Presidential election. This would likely result in the prisoner facility at Guantanamo Bay being kept open for at least several more years, despite the Obama campaign pledge to close it, a move supported as one of the fifty steps in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." A major part of the Obama foreign strategy was to close Gitmo since it was thought to serve as a recruiting tool for terrorists. Keeping it open becomes another foreign policy defeat for this administration.
- In the past week, North Korean forces artillery shelled an island off of the coast of South Korea, resulting in several South Korean civilian and military deaths. The world reacted with horror, condemning the attack, and again asking China for help in keeping its friend, North Korea, under control. Again, the United States goes begging for help from a nation that does not really have the U.S. interests as a top priority. Why? Consider some root causes for China's continuing support of North Korea:
- If the North Korean government ever collapses, millions of North Koreans would likely flee to China, looking for humanitarian aid, especially given the starvation situation currently going on in North Korea. China's best interest is to avoid dealing with starving of Koreans, regardless how badly the North Korean government acts.
- If North Korean does collapse, and you assume that the South Korean government moved in to take over, much like the West/East Germany model twenty years ago, the Chinese probably fear having an United States ally, South Korea, and possibly American troops, sitting on its southern border. Thus., China would prefer to have the current geographic buffer of North Korea to its south, regardless of how badly the North Korean government acts.
- Finally, the Chinese government has been flexing its military muscle lately, especially with regard to Japan. The Chinese and Japanese have a hot dispute going on over some island territories, so hot that only recently did the Chinese government resume shipments of rare earth elements to Japan. Since North Korea has, in the past, test fired rockets that went through and over Japanese airspace, the North Koreans can continue to be a surrogate pain to Japanese on behalf of the military flexing of China.
Karzai wants us to be somewhat, but no totally successful, stringing us along to keep himself in power. The Pakistani government wants us to be somewhat successful in Afghanistan, but not so much that we stop sending them aid or we cut off their ties to their potential future Taliban allies in Afghanistan. The Israelis are happy to take our military aid for a token break in West Bank construction but probably have no real intention of using the 90 day window as a true opportunity for peace. We say we want to close the prison at Guantanamo but we have no plan to do so. The Chinese could care less how we want North Korea to behave, given their country's interests.
What should our foreign policy look like? Better to answer that question by changing our government's basic structure and policies first, including the following steps from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government:
- Underneath a lot of our foreign policy deficiencies is the fact that our political class tries to time foreign policy decisions to elections. The trial of Mohammed and the closing of Guantanamo are delayed until beyond the next Presidential election. The deadlines in Afghanistan are set to avoid coming due around the next Presidential election, whether it was Obama's initial 2011 troop pull down or the new 2014 hand over of fighting to the Afghan government. If politicians were limited to one term in office, as proposed in Step 39, then valid, timely, and successful foreign policy might not be at the mercy of when our elections are scheduled.
- Second, as outlined in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," we need to bring home almost all of our foreign deployed troops as soon as possible, including the 28,000 or so U.S. troops stationed in South Korea. In a hot war between the millions of native soldiers in both Koreas, 28,000 U.S. troops are not going to make any difference in the outcome of the fighting. Get them out now and remove a potential impediment to China helping reign in North Korea.
- Closing the prison at Guantanamo was also a step from the book, why does it take so long to comply with such a simple foreign policy strategy when our political class controls every aspect of this situation?
- Finally, stop being played for a sucker. We need to put some smarter and less gullible people in political office that can understand the both the obvious and the subtle underlying priorities and situations in a foreign policy strategy and execute and leverage a strategy that comes from a position of strength and not from a begging and pleading position of weakness.
Our recent book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
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http://www.cato.org/
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