By Hugh Gorman | January 9, 2010 at 1:19 pm
In the current issue of the Boston Review, Nir Rosen argues that the counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy in Afghanistan is misguided and likely to fail. Several respondents have varying analyses of Rosen’s piece: some agree with his conclusion but thinks he misses a few points; others claim that he is too pessimistic. Aziz Hakimi thinks Rosen is right to doubt the success of an American-lead COIN operation in Afghanistan, but claims that Rosen is wrong in marking Karzai’s government as illegitimate—there is hope for politics in Afghanistan, says Hakimi, as long as the central government devolves power to local officials. Hakimi, however, is not clear about what responsibilities the United States has in Afghanistan, if any. This omission clouds the discussion of what the United States should expect to accomplish in Afghanistan.
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Filed under: Current Events and Issues | Tags: Afghanistan, Aziz Hakimi, Boston Review, COIN, Counterinsurgency, Ireland, Michael Cohen, military, Nir Rosen, Obligations, Police, sectarian, security | No Comments »
By Hugh Gorman | December 5, 2009 at 2:22 pm
In the second of his two recent contributions to the Boston Review, Nir Rosen describes his experiences following a team of marines in Afghanistan who trained and fought alongside a force of Afghans. For most of the article, Rosen sticks to the facts and avoids drawing many explicit conclusions. However, it is reasonably clear that Rosen is skeptical of the ability of the US to succeed in Afghanistan, and he suggests several views in the article: first, it is misguided to optimistically compare the counterinsurgency (COIN) efforts in Afghanistan’s to those in Iraq, second, the state of Afghanistan’s police and armed forces is very poor, and third, the military does not fully support COIN. This last suggestion is unfair.
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Filed under: Current Events and Issues | Tags: Afghanistan, Boston Review, COIN, Counterinsurgency, military, Nir Rosen, Obama, sectarian, transition, tribalism | No Comments »
By Amir | November 13, 2009 at 5:12 pm
As violence diminishes in post-civil war Iraq, sectarianism is becoming entrenched in the political institutions of the country according to the first of a two-part series by Nir Rosen in our November/December 2009 issue. What does this say about Iraq’s future? A government rife with corruption and authoritarian tendencies begins to appear increasingly threatening when sectarianism is thrown into the mix. Although the decrease in violence over the past two years is certainly something to be happy about, it shouldn’t cloud the necessity to foster minority protection rights. Sunnis and Shias have tired of violence and recognized the legitimacy of the central government for now, but ten years down the road, when Shias are receiving all the civil service jobs and Iraqi schools are imposing a Shia-based education on its Sunni students, can we be sure that another civil war won’t break out? And this isn’t even considering the volatile north, where the central government stands by watching the Kurdish authority committing human rights abuses against Shabaks, Yazidis and other minority ethnic groups.
The Obama administration’s attention is currently solely fixed on Afghanistan, and understandably so. The President has rejected all of the proposals set before him by his war council and continues to ponder over whether or not to employ an Iraq-styled “surge” in Afghanistan. While considering the question of whether to increase troops or not, he should also ask if the “success” he would be looking to replicate with the surge is the type of success he wants. The decision facing Obama has been compared to the dilemmas faced by Lyndon Johnson in 1964 with respect to Vietnam. “Eikenberry’s stand” gives the President some time to continue to weigh the pros and cons of a troop increase. During this time, he should not only refer back to the consequences of Johnson’s decisions in Vietnam, but also to what is shaping up to become an untenable peace in Iraq.
Filed under: Current Events and Issues | Tags: Afghanistan, Eikenberry, human rights, Iraq, Kurds, Obama, sectarian, sectarianism, Shia, Sunni | No Comments »
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