War and Peace, by Barack Obama

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – It is a timeline rich in  irony. On Dec. 10, Barack Obama will star at a glittering  ceremony in Oslo to receive the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. That’s  just nine days after he ordered 30,000 additional American  troops into a war many of his fellow citizens think the U.S. can  neither win nor afford.

Bernd Debusmann
Bernd Debusmann

Whether the sharp escalation of the war in Afghanistan he  ordered on December 1 will achieve its stated aim – disrupt,  dismantle and eventually defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and  Pakistan – remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: more  troops equals more fighting equals more deaths — of soldiers,  insurgents and the hapless civilians caught in the middle. Not  exactly a scenario of peace.

In Oslo, Obama will become the fourth American president  (after Jimmy Carter, Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt) to  be handed the coveted peace medal and invited to give the  traditional Nobel Lecture. It is meant to spell out the award  winner’s vision of peace, a challenging task for a man who just  picked a much bigger war from a range of options that included  reducing the U.S. military presence.

Resolving the contradiction will require the mastery of  words of Leo Tolstoy, author of the epic novel War and Peace  about the run-up to the unsuccessful invasion of Russia by  Napoleon.

The deployment Obama announced at the U.S. military academy  at West Point will bring U.S. forces to around 100,000, more  than three times as many as when the president took office in  January. The combined strength of American troops and soldiers  from 42 other nations will be 140,000 – the same level as the  peak of Soviet forces during an eight-year war that ended in a  humiliating defeat.

Obama and his war council are as confident that the U.S.  will not share the same fate as they are determined to reject  comparisons between the American involvement in Afghanistan and  the war in Vietnam. “This argument depends upon a false reading  of history,” Obama said in his West Point speech.

Some respected experts disagree. “For eight years, the  United States has engaged in an almost exact political and  military reenactment  of the Vietnam war,” Thomas Johnson and  Chris Mason write in the latest issue of Military Review,  published by the U.S. Army’s Combined Arms Center, “and the lack  of self-awareness of the repetition of events 50 years ago is  deeply disturbing.”

DOUBLING DOWN ON A BAD BET

The alternatives for a new Afghan strategy the president  discussed over the past three months in lengthy sessions with  his war council included reducing U.S. forces in Afghanistan and  stepping up missile strikes and special forces operations  against al Qaeda militants on the Pakistani side of the border,  the region that serves them as a safe haven.

Instead, the president decided on what looks like doubling  down on a bad bet.

Obama himself pointed to a big obstacle on the road to  success for his war plan: “Afghanistan is not lost, but for  several years it has moved backwards. There is no imminent  threat of the government being overthrown, but the Taliban has  gained momentum. Al Qaeda has not re-emerged in Afghanistan in  the same numbers as before 9/11, but they retain their safe  havens along the border.

“And our forces lack the full support they need to  effectively train and partner with Afghan security forces and  better secure the population.”

The key words are “full support” and Obama did not explain  where that might come from. From a corrupt, inefficient  government that lacks legitimacy in the eyes of most Afghans? On  the Pakistani side, from a weak president with strained  relations with the military?

David Obey, a Democratic congressman who will play a key  role in the impending Congressional wrangling over how to  finance the war, spelt out the problem in an early comment on  Obama’s speech: “We can have the most carefully thought out  policy in the world but if we do not have the tools on the  ground, the odds for success are stacked against us. And right  now, the only tools available to us are the Pakistani government  and the Karzai government in Afghanistan. Both are incredibly  weak reeds to lean on.”

Can those reeds be turned into solid tree trunks? Obama  thinks such a near-miraculous transformation can be achieved by  setting a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops beginning  in July 2011 by which time, or so the wishful thinking goes,  Afghan security forces can fight the insurgents themselves.

The withdrawal deadline has been criticized by Republicans,  many of whom – unlike Obama’s own Democrats – applauded the  escalation. But Republican critics need not worry – White House  officials say July 2011 is the deadline for Americans to begin  (the emphasis is on begin) to pull out. No word on how many.

And in any case, the beginning is subject to review in  December 2010.

Which almost certainly means the U.S. will be in Afghanistan  for the long haul. There is ample time for Obama to work on  solutions that would merit a Nobel peace prize. Unlike the one  he is getting on Dec. 10 for, as the citation put it, capturing  the world’s attention and giving its people hope.    (You can contact the author at Debusmann@Reuters.com)