Mullen: Afghanistan is New Strategic Focus

The U.S. mil­i­tary will shift its strate­gic focus from Iraq to Afghanistan, the chair­man of the Joint Chiefs said yesterday.

“I say that with the full knowl­edge that we still have about 136,000 Amer­i­can troops in Iraq, and that the fight­ing there isn’t over,” [said Navy Adm. Mike Mullen]. Amer­ica remains com­mit­ted to oper­a­tions in Iraq, and will remain in the coun­try long enough to ensure the Iraqis can pro­vide for their own secu­rity, he added.

“But Afghanistan has been an ‘economy-of-force’ oper­a­tion for far too long,” Mullen said. “The Tal­iban, aided by al-Qaida and other extrem­ists and safe havens across the bor­der, are recruit­ing through intim­i­da­tion, con­trol­ling through fear and advanc­ing an unwel­come ide­ol­ogy through thuggery.”

As some­one who opposed the Iraq war because I thought it was a bad idea and a worse strat­egy, this elic­its an “It’s about time!” response. It also reflects the pri­or­i­ties of the Obama administration.

And the stakes couldn’t be higher. If the Tal­iban in Afghanistan are able to con­sol­i­date their posi­tions, they will cre­ate another safe haven for al Qaeda and be able to link up with the haven that already exists in Pak­istan. That would embolden their Pak­istani coun­ter­parts. It’s likely the Pak­istani Army would cut yet another “peace deal” and allow fur­ther gains by mil­i­tants stream­ing out of Pashtunistan.

Defense Sec­re­tary Robert M. Gates said the recent advances by the Tal­iban across the bor­der in Pak­istan served as a wake-up call for Islamabad.

“We and oth­ers have been talk­ing with them about how what is hap­pen­ing there in the west­ern fron­tier area is truly an exis­ten­tial threat to demo­c­ra­tic gov­ern­ment in Pak­istan,” Gates said. “And I think the move­ment of the Tal­iban into Buner really got their attention.”

That it did, along with some pres­sure from Mullen, who vis­ited Pak­istan and appar­ently stiff­ened the military’s spine. Just days after his trip, the offen­sive against the Tal­iban in the Malakand Divi­sion began. Already, accord­ing to some esti­mates, Tal­iban mil­i­tants con­trol or influ­ence about 12 per­cent of Pakistan’s territory.

Speak­ing of that, the Asso­ci­ated Press of Pak­istan (no rela­tion to the Amer­i­can orga­ni­za­tion) is report­ing that in the last 24 hours, 10 mil­i­tants – includ­ing an impor­tant mil­i­tant com­man­der Afsar Hameed – and five  secu­rity offi­cers were killed in fight­ing in Buner. It is impos­si­ble to ver­ify this, given the gov­ern­ment ties of the APP. Also, the Pak­istani gov­ern­ment set up its own Islamic courts in Malakand with­out con­sult­ing Sufi Muham­mad, the cleric who has been medi­at­ing — sort of — between Islam­abad and the Tal­iban. While the gov­ern­ment says it has upheld its end of the peace deal that imposed shari’ah law in Swat and mil­i­tants need to chill out, the Tal­iban and Muham­mad say the gov­ern­ment should con­sult with them before appoint­ing judges to any court in the region.

All this has led the Swat Tal­iban to pretty much dis­solve the peace deal. “Our peace agree­ment with the NWFP gov­ern­ment prac­ti­cally stands dis­solved,” said Mus­lim Khan, a spokesman for Tehrik-i-Taliban Pak­istan (TTP). “Our main tar­get will be secu­rity forces and the rulers of Pak­istan,” he con­tin­ued. “We will also act in other cities of Pak­istan but will not tar­get the gen­eral pub­lic.” That’s good to know. I’ll believe it when I see it.

If you’re inter­ested in stuff more in-depth than this, I’m head­ing to Pak­istan and Afghanistan in June where this blog will fea­ture orig­i­nal report­ing and analy­sis. Please feel free to sup­port this jour­nal­is­tic endeavor by hit­ting the tip jar to the right.