Thoughts on the Current Situation, Iraq and Afghanistan

The following informal analysis of the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan is from a former military intel. officer, via a friend. My friend says this source is well-connected, smart, and perceptive and that his broad take on Afghanistan is generally supported by those he knows currently serving there.


“As to your questions about A-stan - I really don't have a basis of knowledge to speak confidently on that situation. A-Stan 2010 is completely different from A-Stan 2004. For the past three years, I've been wholly immersed in countering the Sunni insurgency in Northern Iraq. I can tell you unequivocally that we've won that war - last weekend's killing of Abu Ayyub Al-Masri and Abu Umar Al-Baghdadi in Tikrit was just icing on the cake. We will continue to deal with embers of that insurgency for the next few years, but the back of it is broken and barring a move by the Kurds to assert their independence, the situation in Iraq will resolve itself. A-Stan is a whole different problem, and again it's one that I haven't been involved with since . . . '04. In my view, it comes down to infrastructure and culture. Iraq was/is years ahead of A-Stan in terms of basic services like navigable lines of communication (roads and highways), electricity, power, sewer, education, and industry. Afghanistan outside of the major cities like Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, and Asadabad seems to be stuck in the 7th century. In Iraq, there was a sense of nationalism that could be tapped into - see the rise of the Sahwa or "Sons of Iraq" (SOI) Sunni nationalists who were willing to step up and defend their Iraqi Nation against the extremist Al-Queda and Islamic State of Iraq interlopers who were seeking to build an oppressive caliphate in their land. I don't see a similar sense of support for nationalism in Afghanistan. The lack of infrastructure and largely nonexistent sense of nationalist support for a viable Afghan nation is daunting. ANA soldiers are drawn from tribes and remote villages - they are largely illiterate, addicted to drugs like hashish, and have no connection or loyalty to anything outside of their own self-interest. Here are some links to the challenges we face as we try to bring the Afghanis on board... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWWWotuUwd0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc8w0IX4UQchttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdggP7rw0mghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBslqsP5UJwSo are we winning? I can't say. It's outside of my area of expertise, and perhaps and even hopefully, somebody else whose more qualified than I would be able to portray it in a more positive light. If I had to predict the future of A-Stan, (and I'm by no means a policy maker or predictor) I'd equivocate it somewhat to the DMZ in Korea. Eventually, we are going to draw down to a certain level of troops, but it's always going to be there as that hardship tour, where American Soldiers go for an unaccompanied year to hone the the COIN skills they've learned at home station and in the CTCs. I don't know if A-stan will ever stabilize, but now that we're there, I find it hard to imagine leaving that god-forsaken land completely and re-opening it to the freedom of maneuver necessary to those who would use it against us. So there are my completely un-resourced and off-the cuff thoughts on A-Stan.”