Obama administration is trying to figure out if a strategy that played out well in Iraq would work in battle against Taliban
 

NATO's American commander in Afghanistan has sounded the alarm that the Afghan mission could fail unless there is a significant boost in troop levels, and a new counter-insurgency strategy to defeat the Taliban.

The leaked report by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of the 100,000 U.S. and NATO forces in the country, also calls for stepped-up recruitment and training of Afghan troops and police, as well as more American troops on the ground to protect Afghan civilians.

But the excerpted report, published by The Washington Post yesterday, met with a lukewarm response from U.S. President Barack Obama, and only fuelled the feeling that the mission is adrift as the Taliban make gains and violence in Afghanistan spreads.

"We're not going to make any decisions on further troop deployment until we know what exactly is our strategy," Obama said in a television interview. And he added, "I'm going to be asking some very hard questions."

One is whether a strategy that played out well in Iraq – quelling an out-of-control insurgency and near civil war with a surge in troop strength – should be a blueprint for Afghanistan.

"There's a heated debate in the military on whether that's the way to go," says Daniel Markey, an Afghanistan expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. "It's an underlying shift in expectations of the way the troops operate and it's revolutionary in terms of what they are expected to do."

But a surge in Afghanistan, with more troops milling among civilians on the ground in remote villages, could go badly wrong, some experts believe.

"The conditions that favoured success are conspicuously lacking in Afghanistan," said Eric Olson, former operational commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, in an article in the Christian Science Monitor.

"It would require small numbers of U.S. soldiers living in countless small villages, where they'd be unable to support each other in emergencies. And since only about 20 per cent of Afghanistan's roads are paved, quick-reaction forces would slow to a crawl, especially in the mountains and in bad weather."

The brigades that would carry out the surge would have to come in large numbers, and be organized, trained and equipped for policing duties they don't normally do. And, Olson said, the political and social development of Afghanistan is far below that of Iraq, making it difficult to measure progress.

In Washington, members of Congress are also dubious about the future of the eight-year-old Afghan operation.

"There is a lot of skepticism," says Markey. "Those on the further left and right are united in their criticism, and the centrist consensus to devote more resources to troops in Afghanistan is dwindling."

The Obama administration itself is split on what a winning strategy might look like, and how much blood and treasure should be devoted to searching for it. Adding to the unease is a disastrous Aug. 20 Afghan election, in which some analysts say hundreds of thousands of ballots were fraudulent. President Hamid Karzai was returned with 54.6 per cent of the vote, according to early counts. But Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission casts doubt on the result.

Support for the Afghan mission has also been undermined by mounting deaths of Afghans and U.S. and international troops, reports of widespread corruption and loss of confidence among Afghans that the mission is improving their lives.

"Afghans aren't changing sides, but more people are sitting on the fence," says Mark Sedra of the Centre for International Governance Innovation. Sedra, who regularly travels to Afghanistan, says lack of trust makes it more difficult to create a counter-insurgency operation that cuts the ground from under the Taliban in the country's remote villages.

"If you're a local person providing intelligence, you have to be sure your family will be protected. Throwing more troops on the ground is one thing, but you have to be sure you're on the right mission."

And he said, there is also a problem with recruiting and keeping Afghan troops, who are vital to any NATO plan for stabilizing Afghanistan in the long term.

"If a large number of international forces were to leave, I'd question their (commitment). The army could fall apart quickly."

Defeating the Taliban is NATO's main thrust. But for the United States, which suffered the 9/11 attacks masterminded by Al Qaeda, that may be less important than the goal of defeating terrorism – a debate that is raging in Washington's back rooms.

"I don't see how thousands of extra troops are going to play into the fight against Al Qaeda, which is based mainly in Pakistan," says Nicholas Schmidle, author of To Live or To Perish Forever. "That may help to contain the Taliban insurgency, but there is no direct link that means if you defeat the Taliban you automatically decapitate Al Qaeda."