ROHRABACHER: An alternative course in Afghanistan

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By Dana Rohrabacher

OP-ED:

We must build up the strength and role of indigenous forces in our drive for victory in Afghanistan and deliver on the promises we made to the Afghans decades ago when their fierce resistance, with our aid, led to the signal defeat of Soviet forces and helped end the Cold War.

But policy flaws, rather like those that turned liberation into quagmire in Iraq, may well undermine our renewed efforts in Afghanistan as President Obama shifts the U.S. focus away from Iraq. We need to recognize that "boots on the ground" are not the primary factor of success.

We only had about 150 "boots on the ground" when the Taliban was defeated and driven out of Kabul seven years ago. In Iraq, contrary to what the military mavens claim, a lack of policy, not a lack of manpower, turned victory into four years of mayhem. Our amazing initial success in Afghanistan, in contrast, was due to relying on an established local power base, the Northern Alliance, a loose-knit yet powerful alternative to the Taliban and al Qaeda.

(Corrected paragraph:) In the 1990s, House International Relations Committee Chairman Ben Gilman, and I along with other veterans of the mujahideen war against the Soviets, nurtured this opposition coalition. The Clinton administration at the time was involved in covertly supporting Taliban rule.

After Sept. 11, 2001, the fighting power of this northern/ethnic coalition was mobilized, and with U.S. air support, al Qaeda terrorists and their Taliban hosts were forcibly expelled from the country. This was done with a minimal loss of American lives and relatively few American "boots on the ground."

In Iraq, our troops destroyed Sadam Hussein's military forces magnificently, thus ending his genocidal regime. But because we did the fighting, no local forces or commanders were readily available to fill the power vacuum. We exacerbated that problem with a stunning display of naivete and arrogance after the liberation.

In short, President Bush's personal choice as boss of occupied Iraq, Paul Bremer, was an unmitigated disaster. Hubris is too mild a description of the ego-driven elitism surrounding his management of Iraq. Instead of recognizing and using the traditional social-political institution, Mr. Bremer, acting as a Douglas McArthur wannabe, set out to redo the entire society.

We alienated a host of influential Iraqis who should have been our allies. It was not until Gen. David Petraeus initiated an effort to recruit Iraq's tribal leaders that the situation began to turn around. The progress continues, and there is ample reason for optimism in Iraq.

Afghanistan, in contrast, started out successfully and is now on a downhill slide. This negative turnabout can be traced to a misconception about the Northern Alliance. Apprehension about armed ethnic and tribal forces led our government to disarm those very same militias that defeated the Taliban, even as the Taliban regrouped and rearmed across the border in Pakistan.