Obama is saying the wrong things about Afghanistan

The tribal Pashtuns of the FATA no man's land, a third of which is classified as "inaccessible" by the Pakistani government, have sometimes given shelter to al-Qaida or Afghan Taliban militants. Some of the Pashtun tribesmen themselves have turned militant, and have been responsible for suicide bombings at police checkpoints inside Pakistan. They are also accused of attacking targets across the border in Afghanistan and of giving refuge to Afghan Taliban who conduct cross-border raids.

The governor of the North-West Frontier province, Owais Ghani, immediately spoke out against Obama, saying that the senator's remarks had the effect of undermining the new civilian government elected last February. Ghani warned that a U.S. incursion into the northwestern tribal areas would have "disastrous" consequences for the globe.

The governor underlined that a "war on terrorism" policy depended on popular support for it, and that such support was being leeched away by U.S. strikes on the Pakistan side of the border and by statements such as Obama's. A recent American attack mistakenly killed Pakistani troops who had been sent to fight the Pakistani Taliban at American insistence. The Pakistani public was furious. Ghani complained, "Candidate Obama gave these statements; I come out openly and say such statements undermine support, don't do it."

The NWFP governor is responsible for Pakistani counterinsurgency efforts in his province and in the neighboring tribal regions. He is well thought of in Pakistan because of his successes in Baluchistan province, which he governed for five years prior to January of this year, where he combined political negotiations with militants and targeted military action when he felt it necessary. He firmly subordinated the military strategy to civilian politics and negotiations. That is, Ghani is a politician with long experience in dealing with tribal insurgencies.

Obama's aggressive stance, on the other hand, could be counterproductive. The Illinois senator had praised the Pakistani elections of last February, issuing a statement the next day saying, "Yesterday, a moderate majority of the Pakistani people made their voices heard, and chose a new direction." He criticized the Bush administration, saying U.S. interests would be better served by "advancing the interests of the Pakistani people, not just Pakistan's president."

Yet the parties elected in February in Pakistan are precisely the ones demanding negotiations with the tribes and militants of the northwest, rather than frontal military assaults. Indeed, it is the Bush administration that has pushed for military strikes in the FATA areas. Obama will have to decide whether he wants to risk undermining the elected government and perhaps increasing the power of the military by continuing to insist loudly and publicly on unilateral U.S. attacks on Pakistani territory.

Nor is it at all clear that sending more U.S. troops to southern Afghanistan can resolve the problem of the resurgence of the Taliban there. American and NATO search-and-destroy missions alienate the local population and fuel, rather than quench, the insurgency. Resentment over U.S. airstrikes on innocent civilians and wedding parties is growing. Brazen attacks on U.S. forward bases and on institutions such as the prison in the southern city of Kandahar are becoming more frequent. To be sure, Obama advocates combining counterinsurgency military operations with development aid and attention to resolving the problem of poppy cultivation. (Afghan poppies are turned into heroin for the European market, and the profits have fueled some of the Taliban's resurgence.) Stepped-up military action, however, is still the central component of his plan.

Before he jumps into Afghanistan with both feet, Obama would be well advised to consult with another group of officers. They are the veterans of the Russian campaign in Afghanistan. Russian officers caution that Afghans cannot be conquered, as the Soviets attempted to do in the 1980s with nearly twice as many troops as NATO and the U.S. now have in the country, and with three times the number of Afghan troops as Karzai can deploy. Afghanistan never fell to the British or Russian empires at the height of the age of colonialism. Conquering the tribal forces of a vast, rugged, thinly populated country proved beyond their powers. It may also well prove beyond the powers even of the energetic and charismatic Obama. In Iraq, he is listening to what the Iraqis want. In Pakistan, he is simply dictating policy in a somewhat bellicose fashion, and ignoring the wishes of those moderate parties whose election he lauded last February.

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