WASHINGTON, March 4 (UPI) -- Having announced a strategy for Iraq, the Obama administration is now completing a strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan collectively called AFPAK. The White House appears to assume that "success," as achieved in Iraq, is obtainable in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, that assumption is flawed.
In my view, unless the West is prepared to commit a hundred thousand or more troops and tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars to Afghanistan, preventing that land from remaining a failed state is mission impossible. The notion that the equivalent of an Iraqi surge with 17,000 or even 30,000 more U.S. troops and added support on the civil side can work simply underestimates the magnitude of the problems. The absence of governance; of a functioning police force and judiciary; of jobs; of infrastructure; and the presence of corruption and drug epidemics will not go away, and there is neither capacity nor stomach to reverse these realities. As a result, two conclusions are important to defining a realistic strategy.
First, in Afghanistan, hold the line militarily, implicitly understanding that over the next two years, having done our utmost to train an Afghan army, gradual withdrawal may be our only option, given the lack of sustained NATO and outside commitment along with our own likely fatigue. Second, we must, however, draw the line in Pakistan.
Pakistan is the true strategic center of gravity in these conflicts.
The good news is that with the proper resources, Pakistan can resolve its security and economic crises on its own.
Last week the Atlantic Council published a report on a way ahead for Afghanistan co-chaired by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. (in full disclosure, I sat on the advisory board). The report concluded that the Pakistani government has about six to 12 months to get a coherent strategy in place. For that strategy to succeed, an additional $5 billion to $6 billion a year above what Pakistan is receiving, including the proposed Biden-Kerry-Lugar bill, is needed, probably for several years. The bulk of that money will go to repairing the economy. About $1 billion is needed for security. What most people do not know is that the $10 billion in coalition support funding meant for the Pakistani army went to the Finance Ministry, with about 70 percent being used to fill holes in the economy. Hence, the army never got what it needed to fight and win a counterinsurgency struggle.
About $100 million to $200 million of this billion would go to recruiting and training 15,000 new police a year to be able to fill in behind the army to provide law and order and security in the northwest territories.
Given our own financial meltdown, getting that money will be tough.
And convincing Congress that it will be used responsibly is critical.
That said, if Pakistan is to prevail, it must have the tools. Failing to provide those means will put us in grave jeopardy if Pakistan were to become a failing or a failed state. Indeed, as we provided insurance giant AIG with upwards of $150 billion on the grounds that failure would collapse the financial system, perhaps a few billion dollars to prevent a strategic implosion would be better spent.
Unfortunately, the Swat agreement and the current political fisticuffs between the People's Party of Pakistan led by President Asif Zardari and the opposition Pakistani Muslim League headed by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif are seen here as further setbacks, in part because the actual facts either have not been well transmitted by the current Pakistani government or ignored by virtue of Pakistan's unhappy history in dealing with the insurgents. In Swat, the government has agreed to allow tribal leader Sufi Muhammed to put in place a truce and rein in his Taliban son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah. Part of the deal is to return to "Shariah" law that would conform more to tribal or what in the West is called common law than the extreme variants of Islam.
The truce in Swat may fail. If it does, the army will have to resume the battle, which I believe it will. But for the moment, the truce needs a period of time to determine what it will or will not achieve.
The fight between Zardari and Nawaz will soon be settled, most likely in favor of the PPP. However, the government then must move ahead with a comprehensive strategy to resolve the twin security and economic crises and make itself more functional and effective. That also means convincing the Pakistani public that the PPP can govern fairly, freely and competently. And given the attacks in Lahore against the Sri Lankan cricket team, that task will become even tougher.
A lot can go wrong. While Afghanistan's outlook is bleak, that is not true for Pakistan, provided we can come up with the funds and the Zardari government can demonstrate the competence to use them wisely.
These are huge challenges on which the future of more than the region rests.
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(Harlan Ullman is senior advisor at the Atlantic Council and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the National Defense University, both in Washington, DC.)
