An American Lion

Thomas Friedman picked up on something worth noting:

But here is what worries me: The president’s spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said flatly: “This can’t be nation-building.” And the president told a columnists’ lunch on Tuesday that he wants to avoid “mission creep” that takes on “nation-building in Afghanistan.”

I am sorry: This is onlynation-building. You can’t train an Afghan Army and police force to replace our troops if you have no basic state they feel is worth fighting for. But that will require a transformation by Karzai, starting with the dismissal of his most corrupt aides and installing officials Afghans can trust.

This surge also depends, the president indicated, on Pakistan ending its obsession with India. That obsession has led Pakistan to support the Taliban to control Afghanistan as part of its “strategic depth” vis-à-vis India. Pakistan fights the Taliban who attack it, but nurtures the Taliban who want to control Afghanistan. So we now need this fragile Pakistan to stop looking for strategic depth against India in Afghanistan and to start building strategic depth at home, by reviving its economy and school system and preventing jihadists from taking over there.

That is why Mr. Obama is going to have to make sure, every day, that Karzai doesn’t weasel out of reform or Pakistan wiggle out of shutting down Taliban sanctuaries or the allies wimp out on helping us. To put it succinctly: This only has a chance to work if Karzai becomes a new man, if Pakistan becomes a new country and if we actually succeed at something the president says we won’t be doing at all: nation-building in Afghanistan. Yikes!

Yes, it certainly is nation building, and it could work if there was a foundation upon which to build. Nation building can work (rarely, however, does it ever last) if there’s already a nation there that needs to cross the finish line after having run 90% of the race.

Friedman points out a Pakistani problem with trying to reach a kind of strategic depth against India. That’s already achieved because they are both nuclear powers. Neither India nor Pakistan should fear that one is going to do anything to bring the other to an end—they have a mutually assured destruction to welcome them to oblivion if they try. The power that has the most influence here is pounding on India’s back door, and that’s China. The relationship between the Taliban and Pakistan rests with a cabal of intelligence and military officials who have no vested interest in seeing a strong Afghanistan, influenced by the United States, align with India in any way, shape or form. We have not found the right way to persuade those elements in Pakistan to put the Taliban aside. That’s a diplomatic failure that the Obama Administration inherited from the Bush Administration.

Remember, the United States is in a full court press to woo India, and support it against China. India is the American bulwark against Chinese domination of South Asia, and China is actively looking for any opportunity to draw regional powers into their sphere of influence. Thankfully, the Chinese have always been looked upon with a great deal of concern by anyone who wants to maintain control of their own fate. We want Pakistan to stay where it is, to be able to control its own fate, and to not find a need or a reason to align with China. We want detente to be the thing that keeps India and Pakistan calm. We want it to stop destabilizing Afghanistan to keep it weak. How we get to that is where the problem with taking a tactical view of the conflict runs smack dab into our strategic national interests. Anything we can do to keep China from fully aligning with either Pakistan or Iran is our ultimate goal here. It has nothing to do with building a nation out of disparate tribes in a landlocked country full of illiterates.