Why a surge is not a sure thing in Afghanistan

Richard Engel Chief foreign correspondent • Profile

KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. policy in Afghanistan is clearly at a crossroads. The war is getting more deadly. The Taliban are moving into new areas outside their traditional strongholds in eastern and southern Afghanistan. Militant groups are trying to overrun American outposts. This summer’s presidential election was marred by widespread allegations of fraud.

Comparisons are being made to Vietnam, and some American generals and policy makers are looking to Iraq for solutions. 

The top military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal recommends a troop surge similar to the one in Iraq two years ago. It worked in Iraq, the thinking goes. The military hopes it will work again. 

But will it? A comparison of the two countries suggests a surge in Afghanistan may give U.S. forces here, stretched thin already, some badly needed short term relief, but may not be enough to turn the tide of the war. 

Iraq’s surge
The common perception is that a troop increase of about 30,000 U.S. forces allowed Gen. David Petraeus – then Iraq’s commanding general, now the American commander who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – to implement a successful new strategy.  The extra troops gave Petraeus the manpower necessary to his shift focus away from hunting down insurgents (killing “bad guys” as the military likes to say) to protecting the Iraqi people. 

The theory was that once the people were protected, they’d enjoy stability and work to root out militants from their own communities. Give the people a taste of life without war and they will work to keep it. Help them to help you.

But Iraq is very different from Afghanistan.  Iraq was in the midst of a civil war when the surge began two years ago.  There is no civil war now in Afghanistan. 

By 2007, Iraqi society had completely collapsed. Kidnappers operated freely in Baghdad. Sunnis and Shiites were blowing up each other’s markets, killing dozens of civilians every day.  Sunni and Shiite militia leaders were setting up checkpoints on the streets and openly executing their rivals. There was street to street fighting. Children were being murdered based on their religion.  Neighborhoods were being ethnically cleansed.

Sunni Arabs, the minority, were losing the civil war. The Shiite-led government seemed happy to see the Sunnis on the defensive, revenge for centuries of Shiite repression at the hands of Sunnis. When Petraeus arrived in Baghdad, he found that the fabric of Iraqi society had not only been torn, it was on fire.

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Connecting to communities
Petraeus decided that to bring calm he needed to connect with Sunni Arab communities (the ones harboring al-Qaida, the worst instigators of sectarian violence) and convince them to fight with the Americans. It was very Lawrence of Arabia.

T.E. Lawrence inspired Arab tribesmen during World War I to fight with the British against the Ottomans with promises of independence and monarchies of their own. They liked it, took the deal, defeated the Ottomans and established kingdoms across the Middle East.

In Iraq, nearly a century after Lawrence, Petraeus offered Iraqi Sunni tribesman something more immediate. He couldn’t offer kingdoms or independence, but instead could provide money and protection. They needed both.  In 2007, Sunni Arabs were being squeezed by Iran, murdered by Iraqi Shiite militias and forced out of power by al-Qaida militants ( who proved to be worse guests than they’d expected).  In fact it was the Sunnis rather than the Americans who reached out first. 

Petraeus responded with a bold move. In addition to bringing in 30,000 American reinforcements, he created a U.S.-backed militia of a 100,000 Sunni Arab tribesmen, the so-called Awakening Movement.  It was a matrimony made in military heaven. Sunni tribes would fight al-Qaida with their new force. In exchange, the U.S. military would pay them and make sure Sunnis were not overrun by Iran or Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government. 

Many have argued that Iraq’s Sunni Arab tribal force made the key difference in turning the tide of the war in Iraq.  The American reinforcements and 100,000 Awakening Movement fighters doubled the size of the combat force in Iraq.

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