The US strategy for Afghanistan won't work

"Covert action is frequently a substitute for policy," was an aphorism first
coined by the former director of the CIA Richard Helms. Its truth is
exemplified by the decision of President Bush in July to secretly give
orders that US special forces will in future carry out raids against ground
targets inside Pakistan, without getting the approval of the Pakistani
government.

Mr Bush's order is fraught with peril for the US and Nato forces in
Afghanistan. In one respect, it is a recognition at long last by Mr Bush
that the Taliban and their al-Qa'ida allies could not stay in business
without the backing of Pakistan. This is hardly surprising, since it was
Pakistani military intelligence which largely created them in the first
place.

It was always absurd for the White House and the Pentagon to pour praise on
the former Pakistani leader General Pervez Musharraf as their greater ally
against terrorism, despite the clearest evidence that it was the Pakistani
army which has been keeping the Taliban going since 2001.

True to Helms's nostrum, Mr Bush has not adopted a new policy, but is
resorting to covert operations, the political disadvantages of which are
obvious, and military benefits dubious. A good example of this is the first
of these operations undertaken under the new dispensation. On 3 September,
two dozen US Navy Seals were helicoptered in to South Waziristan in
Pakistan, where they attacked a compound, aided by an AC-130 gunship. When
they retreated, they said they had killed many al-Qa'ida fighters, though a
senior Pakistani official later said that the true casualty figures were
four Taliban and al-Qa'ida "foot soldiers" and 16 civilians, including
women and children.

It is a curious way to usher in democracy in Pakistan. Once Pakistan emerges
from its preoccupation with the Ramadan fast, it will create nothing but
anger among Pakistanis. It will alienate the Pakistani army, which has been
humiliated and disregarded. Politically, it only makes sense in terms of
American politics, where it will be seen as a sign that the administration
is doing something in Afghanistan. It also diverts attention from
embarrassing questions about why the Taliban is such a potent force seven
years after it had supposedly been destroyed in 2001.

Use of covert forces to achieve political ends with limited means has always
held a fatal attraction for political leaders. CIA officials have become
used to being dumped with insoluble problems, with peremptory orders
to "Get rid of Khomeini" or "Eliminate Saddam." Plots to do just that are
the common theme of a thousand Hollywood movies, which revolve around the
dispatch of elite forces into enemy territory, where they successfully
dispatch some local demon.

In reality, covert warfare seldom works. Up-to-date intelligence is hard to
come by. Take, for instance, the repeated claims by the US Air Force that
it had killed Saddam Hussein during the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
This was meant to be based on up-to-the minute information, much of which
turned out to be spurious. Of course Saddam had survived, though not the
poor civilians who had the ill luck to live or work where the Iraqi leader
was meant to be.

The media plays a particularly nasty role in all of this. Stories of the
attempts to kill Saddam Hussein were given maximum publicity. Their total
failure was hardly mentioned. The reaction of the Pentagon to the killing
of large numbers of civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Pakistan has
traditionally been first to deny that it ever happened. The denial is based
on the old public relations principle that "first you say something is no
news and didn't happen. When it is proved some time late, that it did
happen, you yawn and say it is old news."

For some reason, the Israelis have a reputation for being good at undercover
operations. This is hardly difficult in Gaza, where the enemy is so puny
and vulnerable. But while I was stationed in Jerusalem for this newspaper,
Israeli intelligence was involved in a series of ludicrous fiascos. My
favourite was when the chief Mossad agent in Syria turned out not to exist,
though his Israeli handler happily pocketed several million dollars that
the spy was supposedly receiving for his treachery. The handler concocted
the agent's reports and one of these, falsely claiming that Syria was
plotting a surprise military offensive, even managed to get the Israeli
army mobilised.

Israel also provides a classic example of a covert operation that will
produce limited gains if it is successful, and a diplomatic disaster if it
does not. In September 1997, two Mossad agents carrying forged Canadian
passports tried to assassinate Khaled Mashal, a Jordanian citizen, in the
centre of the capital Amman. He was the head of the political bureau of
Hamas in Jordan. The ingenious method of assassination was to inject a
slow-acting poison into his ear as he entered his office. In the event, the
would-be poisoner was captured after a chase through the streets of Amman.
Four other agents took refuge in the Israeli embassy.

The mission had been given the go-ahead by the Israeli prime minister of the
day, Benjamin Netanyahu, who had simply ignored the idea that it might go
wrong. King Hussein was reduced to threatening to storm the Israeli embassy
unless Israel handed over an antidote to the poison. Israel was forced to
release Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the head of Hamas, and other Palestinian
prisoners from jail.

Covert operations only really succeed when they have strong local allies who
want outside support. There are two recent outstanding examples of this. In
Afghanistan in 2001, US special forces reinforced the anti-Taliban Northern
Alliance and, most importantly, gave them forward air controllers who could
call in air strikes. Two years later, US special forces played a similar
role in northern Iraq, when they provided air support to Kurdish troops
attacking Saddam's retreating army.

But if covert forces are acting alone, they are very vulnerable. What will
happen to them in Pakistan if they get in a fire fight with regular
Pakistani forces? What will they do if they are ambushed by local tribesmen
allied to the Taliban? Usually, the first to flee in these circumstances
are the local civil authorities and the civilian population, so the Taliban
will be even more in control than they were before.

Helms's dictum was right. The Bush administration got itself into a no-win
situation in Afghanistan. "The US attack on Iraq," writes the Pakistani
expert Ahmed Rashid, in his newly-published Descent into Chaos, "was
critical to convincing Musharraf that the United States was not serious
about stabilising the region, and that it was safer for Pakistan to
preserve its own national interest by clandestinely giving the Taliban
refuge."

The covert action in Pakistan is merely an attempt to divert attention from
the consequences of this bankrupt American policy.
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Facts are sacred ... but comment is free

date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:02:00 GMT author: Robin T Cox