Obama’s solution for the Afghanistan-Pakistan nightmare (part two) — VOICES for REASON

Regarding the newly announced Obama strategy for Afghanistan-Pakistan, I argued (in part one) that the administration’s solution is based on a misdiagnosis of the problem. Last time I focused on how the Afghanistan war was guided by a “compassionate” strategy that put concern for the welfare of Afghans ahead of the necessary goal of defeating the enemy. But in his speech, Obama assured the Islamists (which he evasively terms “terrorists”) that “we will defeat you.”

If only that were the focus of his strategy. But it’s not.

Like the Bush administration, Team Obama believes that we must help the Afghans build a strong government. On the conventional analysis, it is the weakness and corruption of the post-Taliban regime that has contributed greatly to the chaos in that country. The idea is that if the Afghan regime were strong, it would serve as a bulwark against the Islamists. “Afghanistan has an elected government,” Obama noted, “but it is undermined by corruption and has difficulty delivering basic services to its people.”

Remedying this problem is at the center of Obama’s strategy: he has promised to send approximately 4,000 U.S. troops to train the Afghan Army and Police and will exert pressure on the government to clean up its act. But will this really result in a regime that can oppose the Taliban? Sadly, the evidence suggests that what distinguishes the current government from the Islamists ideologically is only a difference in the degree of their fidelity to the principle of rule under Islam.

Consider some of the evidence. My colleague Tom Bowden recently noted the case of Afghans who were sentenced to 20 years in jail for modifying the Koran into Persian while not including the original Arabic text. That was blasphemous, you see. Or recall the fate of Abdul Rahman, an Afghan convert from Islam to Christianity: raging mobs and clerics demanded his execution. He was spared that fate by being spirited out of the country to Europe, but only because an international outcry embarrassed the government in Kabul. Keep in mind that these incidents are hardly isolated cases and that they took place under the supposedly pro-Western, pro-freedom regime–not the Taliban.

Moreover, the current regime has faced internal pressure to bend itself into greater conformity with the same Islamist political ideal — sharia — that the Taliban is fighting to impose by force throughout the country. There’s an official council of Islamic clerics who advise Afghanistan’s president. Although their advice is nonbinding, they clearly wield tremendous moral clout. About a year ago, for instance, they demanded that President Karzai stop foreign aid groups from (allegedly) proselytizing for Christianity and that the government reintroduce public executions. Remember that the Taliban, when in power, kicked out foreign aid organizations and regularly put to death all who were deemed enemies of Allah (a practice that continue in the areas of the country where the Taliban regained control).

Among the council’s other demands? The NYT reports:

The council also urged Mr. Karzai to stop local television stations from showing Indian soap operas and movies, which are enormously popular in Afghanistan but which it said included obscenities and scenes that were immoral.

Recall that the Taliban excelled at shuttering video-rental stores, tearing down satellite dishes, and “executing” TV sets — all in the name of promoting “virtue” and doing away with “immorality.”

Take another example: Afghanistan’s president recently signed a Shiite Family Law that (according to The Independent) “negates the need for sexual consent between married couples, tacitly approves child marriage and restricts a woman’s right to leave the home.” Sounds a lot like life under the Taliban regime, which among other things, of course, prohibited women from leaving home without a male relative. By signing the new law, President Karzai was apparently hoping to appease “conservative” lawmakers who drafted it.

So even if the improbable were to happen, even if Afghanistan’s central government had a sufficient police force and military capable of enforcing the law of the land, that law is founded on Islam (according to the nation’s constitution). And judging by current trends, there’s reason to expect such a regime to veer toward an ever-more Taliban-esque policies. Ideologically, the regime has nothing to say in opposition to the doctrines of the Taliban, so how can it really oppose the Islamist resurgence? I don’t see any grounds to believe that it could.

There’s more to say about Obama’s strategy, particularly re how it applies to Pakistan. I plan to write on that in future posts.