More Covert Action
Former head of the CIA’s Afghan Task Force that defeated the Soviets 25 years ago, Jack Devine, and former KGB general Oleg Kalugin provided similar solutions to the war in Afghanistan, both of which consisted of two key steps: (1) Use more covert operations instead of military force and (2) Replace Afghan President Hamid Karzai as soon as possible.
According to Mr. Devine in a Wall Street Journal piece:
The U.S. target of mid-2011 to begin withdrawing troops: “could precipitate the eventual collapse of the Karzai government. Thus we [the U.S.] should cultivate relationships with leaders inside and outside the current regime who are most likely to fill the power vacuum. The strategy should focus on forging the kinds of relationships necessary to keep Afghanistan from re-emerging as al-Qaeda's staging ground once our forces depart, and also on continuing the hunt for Osama bin Laden.”
Kalugin, who has been an American citizen since 1993, believes the U.S. must find other options:
“Washington must quickly find alternatives to the corrupt politicians who have infested the U.S.-backed Karzai regime, perhaps fatally,” Kalugin told Jeff Stein, an intelligence expert who writes a regular column called “SpyTalk” for The Washington Post.
"I would simply build up a strong opposition to Karzai, which would rely on values we all share, which would fight corruption, fight extremism, and, with massive American economic assistance, produce the desired results."
"There are opposition forces to Karzai. . . . those who are more liberal, more educated, more pro-Western and, let's put it this way, more honest. Plenty of them," he said, could be found here and elsewhere around the world.
Mr. Devine hits on a similar chord, recommending working within the tribal structure and even reintegrating Taliban, suggesting the CIA has likely already established relationships with some of them:
“We should figure out now which tribal leaders—and, under specially negotiated arrangements, which Taliban factions—we could establish productive relationships with. It's a good bet that the CIA already has substantial relationships with many of these personalities, particularly in areas where agency operators have long enjoyed relative freedom of movement.”
“Make no mistake,” he added. “We're not talking about supporting advocates for Jeffersonian democracy here. But these partnerships have proven dependable and highly advantageous to U.S. policy makers in promoting regional stability in the past.”
Counterpoint: Oh Really?
Gary Schmitt, the executive director of Reagan’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, begs to differ with Mr. Devine, writing in the American Enterprise Institute’s journal:
It was precisely the agency’s inability to play this insiders’ game well in the 1980s that kept Pakistani intelligence well-fed with American largesse while it worked with more extremist elements of the mujahedeen and eventually established the Taliban as the ruling force in Afghanistan in the mid-’90s. I don’t know what history book Devine has been reading from, but it’s not one that comes close to what really happened. And should we pull the plug on the Afghan mission as he suggests, count on history repeating itself.
With more and longer-standing assets in hand, religious and personal ties, and greater “street-level” knowledge of the factions themselves, there is no way the CIA can outperform and outmaneuver Pakistan’s intelligence when it comes to Afghanistan. In fact, it is precisely the fractionalized nature of Afghanistan that makes a would-be CIA effort virtually impossible, with the agency lacking anywhere near the number of personnel with the experience, cultural smarts, or even language skills to keep all the required balls in the air.
Mr. Schmitt concludes by stating the war will be lost because the COIN strategy is not properly resourced and blames the timeline the Obama administration set for undermining efforts to create stability.
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