Analysis: Obama's Afghan policy -- deja vu

WASHINGTON, March 30 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama's new Afghan policy is eerily reminiscent of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Vietnam policy, when in 1965 Johnson announced the buildup of the war in Southeast Asia, saying he was sending more U.S. combat troops to Vietnam as well as civilian workers.

Just as Obama stressed the importance in deploying civilian advisers to help rebuild Afghanistan, it is worth recalling that by 1964 Johnson had as many as 23,300 American civilian advisers working in South Vietnam alongside 184,300 U.S. combat troops. Less than four years later, U.S. forces in South Vietnam soared to 536,100.

Obama unveiled his latest policy last week, outlining the manner in which the United States should address the war in Afghanistan in view of the rising threat the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies pose to world security. It isn't the most brilliant of policies, as it does not even hint at a time in the near or distant future when U.S. and NATO forces might begin to disengage from Afghanistan. Rather, Obama said he would be sending an additional 4,000 U.S. troops in a first step to increase American military and civilian forces in the country. Under the current circumstances, though, Obama really had no other choice. Had this policy been adopted eight years ago, the world today would have been a very different place.

In fact, Obama's new plan takes the United States back to where it was on the day after Sept. 11, 2001. This is what should have happened then; the brunt of the U.S. forces should have been directed against al-Qaida and their supporters in the Taliban. But there came a distraction in the form of the war in Iraq.

The war in Afghanistan could have probably been won had the emphasis been placed on hunting down the Taliban and al-Qaida's leadership.

One important distinction made in Obama's new policy is the inclusion of Pakistan as part and parcel of the problem. For the first time since the invasion of Afghanistan, the United States is approaching this issue in the most pragmatic manner. The Afghan problem, that of the resurging Taliban, is unlikely to go away so long as the Takfiri rebels can find refuge in neighboring Pakistan.

The problem is this: Both countries are intricately connected in more than one manner.

Neither can be solved so long as the Taliban can enjoy a rear base in the Pakistani border areas. And as long as Afghanistan remains unsettled, it accentuates the risk of the conflict expanding and engulfing other countries in the region.

In outlining his new policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, the U.S. president explained the reasons for the new strategy: that the expanding power being gained by the Islamists poses a real and present danger to the security of the entire free world.

Obama described the situation as "increasingly perilous" and said that the power being encroached by the Taliban posed a threat to the people of America and of the free world.

Obama outlined a dual road to what he hopes will bring stability to Afghanistan and Pakistan's border areas: an increase in U.S. military personnel as well as additional support for the civilian restructuring of the country. The first installment would come in the dispatch of some 4,000 additional U.S. troops.

While both countries welcomed Obama's announcement, some Afghan diplomats remain skeptical regarding the success any plan may have as long as some elements in the Pakistani leadership, more particularly in the military, continue to profit from what one diplomat termed "the AAA of Pakistan." The diplomat explained: "Allah, Army and America."

For some leading members of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency, the AAA has turned into a lucrative business. While the problem of the jihadi Taliban and al-Qaida continues (Allah), the U.S. (America) will continue to send funding to Pakistan and support the country's military in weapons as well as with money, thus keeping the remaining A, the army, in business.

The other novelty in this new policy is that there is a clear sense of mission, with a clearly defined target: "to disrupt dismantle and defeat" the two groups, al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Obama reminded the U.S. allies that the trouble currently brewing just beneath the surface in Southwest Asia is not simply an American problem: "It is instead an international security challenge of the highest order."

Well cognizant of the challenge the region poses to their security, the Russians have indicated their willingness to help out in the Afghan campaign. As a Russian military attache told this reporter last summer, "Had it not been for the tensing of relations between Moscow and Washington over the Bush administration's support of the Georgians during the very brief, but very fierce, war between Russia and Georgia, Russia would have been ready to help out in Afghanistan."

Enough water has since flown under the bridges, and Moscow said it was prepared to help out in Afghanistan. In an interview with the BBC, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow was "ready to participate in the efforts directed at putting things in order" in Afghanistan.

This is an offer Washington cannot and should not refuse.

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Claude Salhani is editor of the Middle East Times.