A War That Cannot Be Won Or-Lost

We should be careful of what we wish for. For years now, there has been a chorus from the right as well as the left in Pakistan, calling for foreign troops to pull out of Afghanistan.

There are indications that they might get their wish before too long.Although July is still not behind us, Britain has already lost 19 soldiers killed in combat, while 150 have sustained serious injuries in this month alone. The war in Afghanistan has already lasted longer than the Second World War, and has cost the British government £5.6bn. And the military still cannot give any timeframe for the duration of the campaign.

No wonder, then, that ordinary people are growing weary of the conflict, especially in the wake of the recent spike in casualties. These days, it’s hard to pick up a newspaper, watch a TV chat show, or listen to a newscast without some criticism of the government’s conduct of the war. In a recent poll, the majority of Britons wanted the troops back by the end of the year.

Although Americans are more used to having their troops fighting in distant lands, fatigue with this unending war is setting in. As Robert Gates, the American secretary of defence, said recently, US citizens as well as the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan are getting sick of their involvement there.

Even though Barack Obama has made Afghanistan the centrepiece of the American battle against Islamic extremism, things can shift quickly in Washington if rising costs and casualties sway public opinion.

More and more pundits and military experts in London and Washington are stating the obvious: the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable. Already, military and political goals have been scaled back to lower public expectations. One of the stated aims of the current ‘surge’ is to stabilise the most violent provinces in order to prevent the Taliban from disrupting next month’s presidential elections. However, all indications are that the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, will win easily.

The question being asked is whether four more years of Karzai will put the country on the path to stability. Judging from his track record, there will be little change. The corruption, poppy production and violence will continue, and the war-torn country will be just as wretched in 2013 as it is today. So what, western critics ask, are allied forces doing, propping up a weak, useless leader who lacks the will and the ability to improve things to the point when western forces can leave?

It is this absence of an exit strategy that is causing sleepless nights for politicians and generals in the West. In Iraq, there was a structure and institutions to build on. These are sadly lacking in Afghanistan. Another big difference is the porous border with Pakistan that allows easy cross-border movement. This gives the Taliban bases to withdraw to. Iraqi insurgents did not have such safe sanctuaries across their borders.

Yet another qualitative difference is the changing nature of the conflict: collateral damage is less acceptable now in Afghanistan than it was in the earlier phase of the conflict. The Americans were thus able to use massive firepower to obliterate their enemies, even if hundreds of non-combatants were killed. This is politically less palatable now, especially under Obama. By relying more on boots on the ground rather than shock and awe, the number of casualties is bound to go up.

So what happens if public opinion forces western governments to pull their troops back from Afghanistan? A resurgent Taliban would be quickly back in Kabul, probably supported by Pakistan. India and Iran would help the Northern Alliance in the ensuing civil war. Relations between Pakistan and Iran would deteriorate, while we would be eyeball-to-eyeball with India.

In other words, we would be back to the pre-9/11 situation. The only difference would be that the Taliban would be viewed as the force that had defeated the mighty Americans. This would give them an aura of legitimacy and invincibility that would win them many recruits and financial backers.

In this scenario, can advocates of the Taliban like Imran Khan and Hamid Gul seriously think the region would be better off? Elements of the Pakistan Army and intelligence agencies are already ambivalent about the need to fight extremism. If foreign forces were to pull out from Afghanistan, they would stand vindicated. One reason they have been reluctant to completely cut off their links with jihadi groups is that they have never been convinced that the West had the political will to stay the distance. A western retreat would rekindle the old dream of strategic depth in Afghanistan that our generals have long harboured.

However, the victorious Taliban would have their own agenda, and would not be the puppets the ISI think they would be able to manipulate. An earlier generation of jihadis drove out the Red Army, and after defeating the US-led coalition, it is unlikely that Mullah Omar would accept dictation from our generals in Islamabad. Chances are that he and his Pakistani allies would seek to extend their writ across large swathes of Pakistan.

Encouraged by the success of the holy warriors in Afghanistan, groups like the Lashkar-i-Taiba would step up their jihad against India in Kashmir. A re-Talibanised Afghanistan would once again become a magnet for young jihadis from across the world. Al Qaeda would emerge from hiding and renew its war against the West and modernity. Rapidly, Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan would become the epicentre of the global jihad to an even greater extent than the region is now.

Already, there is said to be a strong nexus between the Taliban and the Muslim Uighur separatist movement. The Chinese government is highly suspicious of these links, but if, with or without Pakistani support, the Taliban provoke separatist, Islamic sentiments in China’s Xinjiang province, Beijing is likely to take a distinctly jaundiced view of the situation. Pakistan would be put on the spot, and asked to rein in the Taliban. Sooner or later, our Chinese allies would demand that we ‘do more’, a somewhat familiar refrain.

The Taliban, ignorant as they are of how the world works, would provoke Russia by openly supporting the Chechen rebels. In short, they would quickly antagonise India, Iran, the West, Russia and China. And as Pakistan would once again be sucked into supporting Kabul, we would be tarred with the same brush as the Taliban. This is the scenario that we and the West need to keep in mind as the war against the Taliban drags on.

This is a war that cannot be won. But equally, it is a war that cannot be lost.