“A rotating black hole.”

That’s what I’m calling my life right now. I seriously do not understand where all the time goes, except being vaguely aware that it is going really, really fast.

In light of that, posting has and may continue to be less frequent; I’m not real keen on that, but such is things.

Over the weekend, I watched a couple programs worth mentioning here. The first, which I brought up on my twitter account on Saturday, was BBC2’s “The Legacy of Lawrence of Arabia.” I’d gotten it mostly to refresh my memory about T.E. Lawrence alongside a reading of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and was surprised–but only for a moment–to realize that it was hosted by Rory Stewart.

The two-part special is framed as a walk through Lawrence’s life (with fair attention paid to details of historical accuracy over common misconceptions from the 1962 Lawrence of Arabia, drawing parallels of his post-WWI through to post-WWII actions in Arabian lands to entrance of the US and Britain into Iraq (and Afghanistan, which didn’t really do him any favors in his comparison). The thesis of Stewart’s program is essentially that Lawrence himself became disillusioned with Western involvement in the Middle East after the revelation of Sykes–Picot. Lawrence had effectively promised Faisal bin al-Hussein (or Faisal I) an independent pan-Arab state, which Lawrence’s leaders did not deliver. Stewart suggests throughout that the long memory of the people of the Middle East has contributed to the mistrust, unrest, and insurgency in Iraq and other parts of the Arab world of Western nations, which doesn’t seem wrong, exactly, but certainly seems to be a broad claim.

Futhermore, Stewart takes the position that, as Lawrence came to protest European colonization and continued administration of lands in the Middle East, so too should we see parallels in Iraq (and Afghanistan). It’s well understood that Stewart thinks we should scale back our presence and influence in Afghanistan and by extension Iraq (though given the pull-out dates for troops in Iraq it may be less contentious now), and Lawrence is used by Stewart as a vehicle to enhance that argument. “If Lawrence of Arabia did not believe this could be done,” he seems to ask, “what hubris makes us think we can?”

I note above the broad claim, and having finished two hours of this program I concluded that his thought was not merely broad but sweeping. Set against a meandering sort of walk across some truly staggering landscapes–with which Stewart is quite familiar–we, the viewer, are invited to consider the implacability of the peoples by whom we are viewed only as occupiers. Since 1916 Europe (and now the United States) has been viewed as a betrayer of promises, and such are the people we must pacify.

Even acknowledging the troubling impetus for invading Iraq, Stewart’s thesis in this piece takes a deeply narrow gaze and interprets Lawrence’s words as if they are allegorical to the contemporary wars. I do not believe there is any part of the wars of the United States and Britain over the last ten years that is narrow, and they are hardly allegorical.

In Stewart’s piece last year criticizing Obama’s then-sketchy plans for what to Do About Afghanistan, he writes in the London Review of Books of another Lawrence, Sir John the viceroy of India, saying of the British Empire and Russia during the Great Game:

But he undermines the fantasy of an Afghan threat as much through the rhythm of his prose as through his arguments. His synecdoche, ‘the Oxus and the Indus’, emphasizes to a domestic policymaker the unknown and alien nature of the landscape; the archaism ‘wend’ illustrates the circuitous routes; his repetitions enact the repetitive and tiresome journey. He highlights the political and religious energies of the resistance (placing them ‘every mile’) and suggests internal divisions without asserting them (by describing Afghanistan not as a single state but as ‘countries’). His concessive subjunctive ‘let them’ reflects his attitude of uncertainty about the future. It is not an assessment of the likelihood of a Russian march but an enactment of its potential and it reduces the army by the end of the sentence to a decrepit band on the edge of the Indus, which it would be difficult to perceive as a threat.

But there is no “let them” here. There is only “we have,” and if we cannot rewrite the past we also cannot abandon that which we have started–particularly as Afghanistan (if not, exactly, Iraq and its copious oil) is not an exercise in colonialism but one in addressing a long-neglected mess.

Tomorrow, “The Fog of War,” or the curious history of Robert McNamara.

And then I get to dress like a spy.

I have kind of been ignoring the long war recently; amid the terrorist plots foiled and potential bombers arrested in the US, I’ve just been idly keeping tabs rather than get embroiled in the drama of it all. But the NYT has an article on Rethinking Our Terrorist Fears that caught my attention.

But important as they were, those news reports masked a surprising and perhaps heartening long-term trend: Many students of terrorism believe that in important ways, Al Qaeda and its ideology of global jihad are in a pronounced decline — with its central leadership thrown off balance as operatives are increasingly picked off by missiles and manhunts and, more important, with its tactics discredited in public opinion across the Muslim world.

“Al Qaeda is losing its moral argument about the killing of innocent civilians,” said Emile A. Nakhleh, who headed the Central Intelligence Agency’s strategic analysis program on political Islam until 2006. “They’re finding it harder to recruit. They’re finding it harder to raise money.”

It’s heartening to hear that there is some effectiveness in the strategies that existed…

Even counterterrorism officials who agree that Al Qaeda is on the wane, for example, say the organization might well regroup if left unmolested in a lawless region in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Somalia. Moreover, they point out that even a lone terrorist with modest skills can produce mass carnage. Six years before 9/11, with no aid from a sophisticated network, Timothy McVeigh used a simple fertilizer bomb in Oklahoma City to kill 168 people. And the 2001 calamity was the work of, at most, a few dozen plotters.

…but that doesn’t mean it’s over. I believe the words are, “it ain’t over until it’s over.” Or so I’ve heard.

Peter Mandaville, a professor of government and Islamic studies at George Mason University, says a series of public recantations” by prominent Islamist scholars and militants in recent years have had an effect. But the biggest catalyst has been bombings close to home. “Right after 9/11, people thought, wow, America is not invincible,” Mr. Mandaville said. “It was a strike against the U.S., and they were for it.” But when large numbers of innocent Muslims fell victim to attacks, “it became more and more difficult to romanticize Al Qaeda as fighting the global hegemons — basically, ‘sticking it to the man.’ ”

Rebels aren’t that awesome if they’re killing their own people, too. Then we just call it civil war.

Even those who are convinced Al Qaeda is growing weaker offer a cautious prognosis about what that might mean. They say that what is growing less likely is an attack on American soil with a toll equal to or greater than that of 9/11. But they concede that the example of Al Qaeda will continue to produce copycats: “Bin Laden has given others a narrative, a grand story of struggle, and he’s given them tactics as well,” Dr. Mandaville said … “Terrorism,” he added, “is here to stay.”

This long war ain’t over yet, that should be clear. And the US will be doing itself a disservice if we use this small progress as a benchmark for withdrawal.

Nation building at the barrel of an M-16.

Some Afghanistan errata.

Oliver North’s file from Monday, In the Afghan Battle Space:

Until 2nd LAR arrived here, this part of Afghanistan had been without any government or coalition presence since 2002. On July 4, with Brig. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson, commander of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade, present, Afghanistan’s national flag was unfurled, and Masood Ahmad Rasooli, a university-trained pharmacist in his late 20s, was installed as district governor. When I asked him this week if he has been threatened, he shrugged and told me through a Marine interpreter, “Of course. That comes with the job.” [Washington Times]

David Wood, over at Politics Daily, offers probably the best real-world understanding of McChrystal’s COIN strategy from last month:

In a related program, soldiers are teaching village women to make high-protein baby formula from locally available produce. That’s a project of the civil affairs teams led by Special Forces Maj. James N. Schafer. “I wish I had more teams,” he told me. “We are doing better; things are better than a year ago. But we need more civilians – we don’t need more guys carrying guns.”

These aren’t simply feel-good projects; they are ruthlessly assessed as part of the U.S. counterinsurgency war-fighting plan. Rather than simply asking local Afghans if they’d like a new school or a baby nutrition program, soldiers ask detailed questions to understand local origins of instability: What causes the conflicts that the Taliban can exploit? It may be a lack of jobs, or corrupt officials, or high child malnutrition. Action is taken to meet those needs. Then the results are carefully measured – did the project really provide jobs? Was the corrupt official removed? If necessary, new actions are planned. Results must deliver more security, more jobs or better government.

“[W]e don’t need more guys carrying guns.” The things about nation-building, on a practical level, is that military forces may be necessary to assure security, but artillery won’t replace homes, jobs, and lives lost in war. I think we need more trained personnel who can implement the real challenges of rebuilding a nation. But I accept that the only way to achieve that is to insure the security of that personnel through additional troops. That doesn’t seem to be the option, though–the option, as it is becoming clear to me, is that NATO forces are responsible for the double duty of security/enemy engagement and that nation building. And I am not convinced that it can reasonably be successful.

Paul Pillar has an op-ed in the WP questioning the relationship of location to terrorism:

How important to terrorist groups is any physical haven? More to the point: How much does a haven affect the danger of terrorist attacks against U.S. interests, especially the U.S. homeland? The answer to the second question is: not nearly as much as unstated assumptions underlying the current debate seem to suppose. When a group has a haven, it will use it for such purposes as basic training of recruits. But the operations most important to future terrorist attacks do not need such a home, and few recruits are required for even very deadly terrorism.

Granted, it is worth noting that the 9/11 attacks were planned initially within Afghanistan before being exported to other bases in Europe; but I think his point still stands. If terrorism is what we went into Afghanistan to combat, then perhaps we have effectively done that. (Note Gen. McChrystal saying there is little evidence for major al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan at this time.) Of course, I think the long war against terrorism fits cleanly into Pillar’s conception here; but I also think that Afghanistan, as it currently stands, is not a relationship we (US/NATO/ISAF troops) can abandon–and not merely for the somewhat hyperbolic claim that the terrorists would return immediately. I believe that we are ethically obligated to remain, because that nation is in such a state of disrepair that to withdraw would be morally abhorrent. It is our mess to clean up.

It’s interesting to me that the biases I’d expected to see in the WP–hawkish determination to remain in Afghanistan–aren’t being picked up. Instead there seems to be a general bent towards withdrawing from Afghanistan, and letting it stand as a failure.

Foreign Policy breaks down the metrics that will/are be used to evaluate progress in Afghanistan-Pakistan. I’d really like to sit down and analyze this, but I don’t have time and other people did it better. Maybe tomorrow. Either way, it’s really interesting to see a method of evaluation laid out, and Objective 3b is relevant in light of this post.

Derrida would be proud of this deconstruction.

There was a bit of a dust-up over at Abu Muqawama this weekend. Now, I agree that the poster was setting up a straw man argument, but it’s the comments to this post that really caught my mind.

It reflects the larger argument going on right now, within the community of similarly-focused bloggers and to a degree within the mainstream public (though not nearly as much as might perhaps be valued), about the decision to remain in or withdraw from Afghanistan; and should we remain, what strategic procedure should be employed to reach our objectives. There is also a cogent argument, as well, questioning what exactly our goals in Afghanistan are.

This month’s variation on the discussion began with George Will’s column in the WP advocating withdrawal from Afghanistan to fight this war from outside the nation’s borders. Spencer Ackerman picks up the discussion where it has come to now, a verbal spar between Yingling and Krulak that talks through some of the finer points of a) the reasons the US entered Afghanistan in the first place; b) the implementation of the newer COIN strategy; and c) reasons to remain in Afghanistan now, eight years later.

Additionally this weekend, Cliff May (Washington Times) responded to Will’s assertion that we should withdraw with something perhaps closest to my own opinion on the matter.

I would stress this: Afghanistan is not a war. It is one battle in what — I’m not the first to deduce — is going to be a long war, a global conflict to defend America and the West against an insidiously dangerous enemy…We are fighting over ideas as much as land. In fact, as real estate, Afghanistan is of minimal value. But what happens there will help determine how we — and our enemies and the millions of people around the world who have not taken sides – understand what this struggle is about and who is likely to prevail.

And yet the response to this position, which is hardly radical and is almost unabashedly pragmatic, has been something closer to “cut our losses.” Fareed Zakaria, whose work I generally admire, put it this way:

There are three ways to change security conditions in Afghanistan. First, increase American troops. Second, increase Afghan troops. Third, shrink the number of enemy forces by making them switch sides or lay down their arms. That third strategy is what worked so well in Iraq and what urgently needs to be adopted in Afghanistan. In a few years, Afghanistan will still be poor, corrupt and dysfunctional. But if we make the right deals, it will be ruled by leaders who keep the country inhospitable to al-Qaeda and similar terrorist groups. That’s my definition of success.

Where May suggests that we are, and should remain, in it for the long haul, Zakaria views Aghanistan as an entirely unwinnable war by ISAF troops. I think this is a false claim, and it’s one that I worry will be largely supported by key Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden. While I do feel that we, in particular, have an ethical obligation to remain in Afghanistan, I can set that aside in support of other arguments. Namely that, by withdrawing from Afghanistan, we provoke a greater risk to our national security than we do by staying, even if it is unpopular. Sylvana Q. Sinha, at the Af-Pak Channel, sums up the crux of argument well:

In light of all we know about Afghanistan after nearly eight years, it appears the only reason for President Obama to lead the U.S. to pull out of Afghanistan is because the public is tired of war. This is not a good enough reason, and making a decision based on it would not be an act of true leadership.

I think it is clear that Americans are tired of war; there is certainly something to the news fatigue that so many people invested in the outcomes of our wars complain about. But it is not the responsibility of the President to be popular. It is the responsibility of the President to insure the security of the nation, and withdrawal from Afghanistan will, by anyone’s measure, do nothing further the security of the United States.

Robert Jervis, also from Af-Pak Channel, addresses a response to the above assertions:

A third but subsidiary argument is that withdrawal would undermine American credibility around the world. Again, the fact that this is an echo of Vietnam does not make it wrong, but it does seem to me much less plausible than the other arguments. Who exactly is going to lose faith in us, and what are they going to do differently? Much could depend on the course of events in other countries, especially Iraq, which could yet descend into civil war. But if it does, would American appear more resolute — and wiser — for fighting in Afghanistan?

They are fair questions, but I think Sinha does well in answering them. And here again, Londonstani’s post referenced above in Abu Muqawama brings up another relevant point, straw man though it has accurately been assessed to be: at what point does the acknowledgment of the difficult position the Afghani people are put in become something of note? Surely the discussion cannot rest entirely on enemy power, troop force, and public support. Something has to be said for the situation as it has become for the citizens of the country itself.

I do not doubt that I am still in the process of answering these questions. But it seems as though the fundamental belief in all of this is that this war can somehow only be fought by troops, and won effectively by troops, and that this win can only be achieved over a long period of time. I wonder if perhaps we’re predicating this discussion on nation building only through military action, and if instead we should take this counter-insurgency strategy published last month and look at it on a larger, only partially militaristic level.

Then again, apparently al Quaeda isn’t really a problem in Afghanistan anymore, so maybe we’re all off the mark.