After all, Petraeus literally wrote the book on U.S. counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine, which McChrystal tried to apply in Afghanistan over the past year. It only seems natural to expect that Petraeus will maintain the same approach.
But continuity is the worst possible option for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, because it would mean maintaining a strategy that appears increasingly unlikely to succeed. Instead, President Barack Obama should use the change in command to modify his goal, from "winning" the war in Afghanistan to laying the
political and military groundwork for withdrawal.
Failure to clearly identify which of these two paths would define the U.S. mission has been perhaps the Obama administration's greatest strategic failing in Afghanistan.
In March 2009, Obama declared that his goal in Afghanistan was to defeat, dismantle and disrupt al-Qaida, and pointedly noted that "dictating" Afghanistan's future was not in the cards. But McChrystal's strategy, laid out only months later, was predicated not only on protecting the Afghan people, but also on providing "a secure environment allowing good government and economic development to undercut the causes and advocates of insurgency."
Even after the administration's lengthy Afghanistan review last fall,
the gap between Obama's stated goal and McChrystal's ambitious strategy remained unresolved. The president's 18-month timeline to begin drawing down U.S. troops and his order to McChrystal not to occupy territory that couldn't be turned over to Afghan security forces by June 2011 suggested a more minimal goal of stabilizing Afghanistan and speeding the path toward withdrawal. But McChrystal's military forays into Taliban-controlled and Pashtun-dominated southern and eastern Afghanistan and his emphasis on U.S.-led nation-building spoke to a different aspiration.
Indeed, under McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO mission was to both out-fight and out-govern the Taliban -- in short, to "win" in Afghanistan. But victory has not been in the cards in Afghanistan for a very long time. With polling indicating that Americans are souring on both the war and Obama's stewardship of it, the focus must shift to protecting U.S. interests while leaving Afghanistan as stable as possible after our withdrawal.
If this is indeed the goal moving forward, Petraeus might be the best man for the job. In Iraq, he showed himself to be a military leader willing to adapt to changing circumstances on the ground, rather than remaining slavishly wedded to military doctrine.
For example, in Afghanistan, McChrystal put in place highly restrictive rules of engagement that constrained the ability of coalition soldiers to call in airstrikes, or even shell targets, unless they were absolutely certain that no civilians were present. While consistent with the Army's field manual on counterinsurgency, the approach contrasted with the COIN tactics that Petraeus applied in Iraq. As
Pete Mansoor, Petraeus' executive officer in Iraq, noted recently, "hearts and minds had nothing to do" with counterinsurgency warfare there. Instead, the focus was on using the "stick" of military force -- rather than the "carrot" of good governance -- to separate insurgents from the population.
Indeed, in Iraq,
the number of air sorties involving the use of munitions jumped from 229 in 2006 to more than 1400 after Petraeus took over command in 2007.
The number of detainees rose by 50 percent between February and August 2007. And
Iraqi civilians killed from air strikes went from 252 in 2006 to 943 in 2007. If fewer Iraqi civilians were being killed overall, that had more to do with increased ethnic enclaving in Baghdad and reduced militia violence than with changes in U.S. tactics.
In Afghanistan, while the number of civilians killed by U.S. soldiers has declined, roadside bombings, assassinations and
suicide attacks have increased significantly. And many of these attacks are occurring where U.S. troops are located -- Afghanistan's southern and eastern regions. Indeed, U.S. military operations have created the worst of both worlds: continued violence against Afghan civilians and no significant rollback of Taliban momentum. Paradoxically, if Petraeus relaxes U.S. rules of engagement in Afghanistan, civilians may find themselves at greater risk of being harmed by U.S. soldiers, but still safer overall. That could bring the conflict closer to a political resolution.
Obama would also do well to take a page from Petraeus' past willingness to make deals with unsavory actors in pursuit of U.S. interests. In Iraq, the U.S. military joined forces with insurgents when the latter became willing to turn their guns on a common enemy. The same difficult decisions may become necessary in Afghanistan, particularly as the Karzai government increases its political outreach to various Taliban elements -- like the Haqqani network, which maintains a loose affiliation with al-Qaida.
Indeed, accepting a political role for key Taliban leaders is perhaps the most important and overdue shift required in U.S. strategy.
Recent statements by CIA Director Leon Panettathat the Taliban must be prepared to "surrender" their arms do not provide a genuine starting point for negotiations. The only red line that should matter to U.S. policymakers is that there be no al-Qaida sanctuary in Afghanistan. In addition, the U.S. should make clear that it is prepared to maintain a military presence in Afghanistan, albeit a small one, until the threat of a Taliban military takeover of the country has abated. Everything else should be left up to the Afghans themselves. Protecting U.S. interests and finding a way out, rather than crafting the perfect political deal, must be the overriding goal of U.S. policymakers.
With the change of military command, Obama has a unique opportunity to clarify U.S. goals for Afghanistan and put in place a strategy to end what has become America's longest war. The only road forward for U.S. policymakers is not one that ends in ticker-tape parades, but instead one that can lead us to the light at the end of the tunnel.
