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Obama's Illogical Afghanistan-Terrorism Policy

By Jack M. Balkin

A great deal of the day-after commentary on President Obama?s State of the Union Address focused on his temerity to criticize Supreme Court Justices to their faces (for Citizens United), and Justice Alito?s ?not true? moving lips response. I guess that?s important stuff.

I was more taken by his comments on fighting terrorism and Afghanistan. The following two passages nicely help expose why our current course of action in Afghanistan will end badly.

Since the day I took office, we've renewed our focus on the terrorists who threaten our nation. We've made substantial investments in our homeland security and disrupted plots that threatened to take American lives. We are filling unacceptable gaps revealed by the failed Christmas attack, with better airline security and swifter action on our intelligence. We've prohibited torture and strengthened partnerships from the Pacific to South Asia to the Arabian Peninsula. And in the last year, hundreds of al Qaeda's fighters and affiliates, including many senior leaders, have been captured or killed -- far more than in 2008.

And in Afghanistan, we're increasing our troops and training Afghan security forces so they can begin to take the lead in July of 2011, and our troops can begin to come home. We will reward good governance, work to reduce corruption, and support the rights of all Afghans -- men and women alike. We're joined by allies and partners who have increased their own commitments, and who will come together tomorrow in London to reaffirm our common purpose. There will be difficult days ahead. But I am absolutely confident we will succeed.

Here is the basic chain of reasoning behind his policy: President Obama has substantially increased our military presence in Afghanistan?it?s his war now?because that?s the front line in our battle against terrorism. To ?win? (or at least not lose) in Afghanistan we must transform their government into a good government respected by the Afghan people, able to maintain security so that the country will not become a breeding ground for future terrorists; additional U.S. troops provide the necessary stability to make that possible (along with piles of money, and lots of lecturing-jawboning at Afghan government officials). Meanwhile, on the home front, we?ll fix our intelligence problems to prevent repeats of the Christmas Day failure and stop terrorists who try to attack us.

This reasoning is two parts fantasy and one part illogical.

Fantasy part one is the notion that the Afghan government can be transformed. No exercise in good governance nation-building, when starting from thoroughgoing corruption and venality in a government, has ever succeeded (see here for abundant evidence). And even if it were possible, we are talking about many decades.

Fantasy part two is the suggestion that intelligence reform will save us from future attacks. What the Christmas Day attack brought home is the lesson that there are limits to what ?intelligence reform? can accomplish?for reasons elaborated in this essay. No amount of intelligence reform can halt determined attacks.

The illogic lies in the purported link between the war in Afghanistan and reducing terrorism in the U.S. As his first paragraph above implicitly admits, very few al Qaeda members are actually in Afghanistan today?the arrests he refers to are elsewhere around the world. More important, our continued military presence in Afghanistan (as well as in Iraq) provokes further radicalization. Perversely, his very policy in Afghanistan, which cannot achieve its stated goals, is having the effect of generating more terrorists.

President Obama?s military expansion in Afghanistan is making the terrorism problem in the U.S. worse. This policy is truly bad own its own terms--even without factoring in the many American soldiers and Afghans who will be killed and injured in this war, and the billions of dollars it will cost.

Full post as published by Balkinization on January 28, 2010 (boomark / email).