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Dr. Walid Phares
Taliban's Counter Strategy Is Based on Declared US
Strategy
December 9, 2009
Now that we know the administration’s new strategy
for Afghanistan, what is the Taliban strategy
against the United States?
Such a question is warranted to be able to project
the clash between the two strategies and assess the
accuracy of present US policies in the confrontation
with the forces it is fighting against in that part
of the world.
So, how would the Taliban/al-Qaida war room counter
NATO and the Afghan Government based on the Obama
Administration's battle plan?
Strategic Perceptions
The jihadi war room is now aware that the
administration has narrowed its scope to defeat the
so-called al-Qaida organization while limiting its
goal to depriving the Taliban from achieving full
victory, i.e. depriving them "from the momentum." In
strategic wording this means that the administration
won’t give the time and the means, let alone the
necessary long term commitment to fully defeat the
Taliban as a militia and militant network.
The jihadist strategists now understand that
Washington’s advisers still recommend talking to the
Taliban, the entire Taliban, but only after the
latter would feel weak and pushed back enough to
seek such talks. Underneath this perception, the
Salafi Islamists’ analysts realize that present
American analysis concludes that al-Qaida and the
Taliban are two different things, and that it is
possible to defeat the first and eventually engage
the second.
Such a jihadist understanding of US defective
perceptions will give the Taliban and al-Qaida a
first advantage: knowing that your enemy, the United
States, isn’t seeing you as you really are.
Strategic Engagement
The US has reconfirmed that the goal of the mission
in Afghanistan is to destroy al-Qaida, train the
Afghan armed forces but not to engage in
nation-building. Unlike previous American
commitments, which weren’t very successful anyway,
the current strategy officially ignores the
ideological battle.
Hence the Taliban understands that their lifeline to
further recruitment based on madrassas graduations
is wide open. Washington’s efforts and dollars won’t
touch the ideological factory of jihadism, which is
the strategic depth of the Taliban and al-Qaida.
Hence, the jihadi network in Afghanistan will
continue and further develop its indoctrination
structures, untouched and un-bothered by American
military escalation. The Marines and other NATO
allies will be fighting today’s Taliban, while
tomorrow’s jihadists will be receiving their
instruction in full tranquility.
By the time the US deadline to withdraw would be
reached, in 2011, 2012, or even beyond, the future
forces of the enemy will be ready to be deployed.
One wave of terrorists will be weakened by the
action of the U.S. and NATO armed forces, while the
next wave will be prepared to take over later.
Deadly Deadline
The administration’s plan included a timeline for
withdrawal from the central Asian country (although
reinterpreted as beginning of withdrawal). Basing
their assessment on the notion of “no open ended
engagement,” the shapers of the new Afghanistan
strategy have told the enemy’s war room on camera
that America’s time in Afghanistan is until 2013
maximum, after which it will be Taliban time again.
As many analysts have concluded, all the jihadists
war planners have to do is to wait out the hurricane
of escalation. The deadly deadline proposed in the
strategy has no precedent in the history of
confrontation with totalitarian forces. The Taliban
waited out eight years, what are two, three or eight
more years, if the US-led coalition's action is not
qualitatively (not just quantitatively) different?
A Surge to Exit
As presented to the Afghan people, the
administration's new plan for the battlefield is
seen as a last surge before the general exit of the
country. The Taliban’s war room has understood the
equation. Thirty thousand more US troops will deploy
with their heavy equipment, backed by another 5,000
to 10,000 allied forces. Offensives will take place
in Helmund and other areas. Special forces will move
to multiple places and shelling will harass the
Islamist militias as long as two years or more.
The Taliban will incur losses and al-Qaida's
operatives will be put under heavier pressure: All
that is noted in Mullah Umar’s book and saved on
Zawahiri’s laptop. Then what?
Then the time for exit is up and US and NATO forces
begin their withdrawal. When that happens, the
surviving Taliban, plus the new wave just graduating
from madrassas, or the jihadi volunteers sent from
the four corners of the virtual “Caliphate” will
have a choice to make: Either they will accept the
US negotiators' offer to join the Afghan government
or — depending on their assessment then — will
reject the offer and shell the "infidel troops" as
they pull out.
In a nutshell, the new strategy is convenient to
that Taliban war room: They now can figure it all
out until the Mayan year of 2012 — and way beyond.
All that it takes for democracies to offer the
totalitarians victories is to not understand the
latter’s long-term goals. And we’ve just done that,
so far. |
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