{"id":106,"date":"2010-04-05T06:53:04","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T06:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp3\/?p=106"},"modified":"2010-04-05T06:53:04","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T06:53:04","slug":"marjah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sunnionline.us\/english\/2010\/04\/05\/106\/","title":{"rendered":"Marjah"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"marjah\"The phrase \u201cphoney war\u201d was coined in the period between Germany\u2019s invasion of Poland in September 1939, and its invasion of France nine months later. It referred to the fact that while the western European allies had declared war on Hitler, they declined to do any serious fighting. The term would hardly seem to fit the Nato offensive in Afghanistan\u2019s Helmand Province, where last month\u2019s assault by some 15,000 US-led troops on the town of Marjah was the largest such operation since the Vietnam War.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Still, Marjah seemed less like a titanic showdown than a tactical exercise aimed at shaping perceptions of the war \u2013 both in Afghanistan and back home in the US. Lest this assessment sound a tad cynical, consider the words of the operation\u2019s architect shortly before it began: \u201cThis is all a war of perceptions,\u201d said Gen Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan. \u201cThis is not a physical war in terms of how many people you kill or how much ground you capture, how many bridges you blow up. This is all in the minds of the participants. Part of what we\u2019ve had to do is convince ourselves and our Afghan partners that we can do this.\u201d
” The US insists, in fact, that its military campaign in southern Afghanistan is an essential precondition for such a solution, by proving to the Taliban that it can\u2019t win on the battlefield “The Americans telegraphed their intention to move into the town weeks before the Marjah operation began, in order to allow civilians to get out of the way; most of the town\u2019s Taliban contingent appears to have done likewise.
Many analysts supportive of the war suggest that a more appropriate target for a massive showdown aimed at showing the Taliban that they can\u2019t win would have been Kandahar, the movement\u2019s longtime symbolic \u201ccapital\u201d and a city with 10 times the population of Marjah. But Gen McChrystal insisted Marjah was simply an \u201cinitial salvo\u201d, designed to test a new strategy that will be applied to Kandahar in the summer. The US would clear the Taliban out and secure Marjah, bringing with it what Gen McChrystal memorably dubbed \u201ca government in a box\u201d \u2013 a ready-made administration including a mayor and various government departments, a constabulary and the Afghan National Army to offer security and good governance.
The key to phase two of the Marjah operation is to demonstrate to the local population that they\u2019d be better off with the Afghan government than under the Taliban, but it got off to an inauspicious start. The New York Times reported that some Afghan National Army troops looted the local marketplace, forcing the Americans to hand out hundreds of dollars to compensate local merchants for their losses. The mayor pulled out of Gen McChrystal\u2019s box was a businessman who was not from Marjah and who has spent most of the past 15 years in Germany.
And when the Americans flew in the country\u2019s deputy president to address local elders on behalf of the Karzai government, Abdul Karrim Khalili \u2013 an ethnic Hazara \u2013 addressed his Pashtun audience in his native Dari, a language most had difficulty understanding, without the benefit of an interpreter. The local marine commander conceded last week that Marjah\u2019s population is \u201csceptical\u201d of the Americans and their Afghan allies.
The decisive struggle in Afghanistan may be happening far away from Marjah, however, much of it behind the scenes in Kabul, Islamabad and beyond. That would be the battle to shape the negotiated political settlement with the Taliban that everyone accepts will be the conflict\u2019s inevitable outcome.
The US insists, in fact, that its military campaign in southern Afghanistan is an essential precondition for such a solution, by proving to the Taliban that it can\u2019t win on the battlefield. So, there was consternation in Washington last month when President Hamid Karzai invited the Taliban to join a national dialogue, amid news reports that he was hoping to get Taliban candidates to run for office in the country\u2019s next parliamentary election.
Seeking negotiations before the Taliban\u2019s military momentum has been stopped would be disastrous, the Americans insist. But others see it differently \u2013 Mr Karzai, for one, whose priority is his own survival. He\u2019ll seek whatever deals can best ensure his political longevity \u2013 and reject anything that diminishes his authority. (That, of course, may limit his chances, since the Taliban are unlikely to settle for anything less than his replacement by an interim government.)
Washington\u2019s European allies are in a hurry to get out, and Pakistan is determined to ensure that its reward for sheltering the Taliban leadership over American objections for the past eight years is that it gets to shape the political solution according to its own needs and timetable.
These are competing agendas, of course, which may explain one of the more bewildering episodes of the war \u2013 the capture by Pakistani forces of the Afghan Taliban deputy chief Mullah Baradar in Karachi a couple of weeks ago. By some accounts, the Pakistanis held Mullah Baradar because he was negotiating directly with Mr Karzai behind their backs. Others suggested that the Pakistanis may be playing a double game: After all, they refused to hand Mr Baradar over to the US for interrogation or extradite him to Kabul. US officials suggested to the media that the Pakistanis may be using the arrest of Baradar and other key Taliban leaders to accelerate a negotiation process, and that Mr Baradar would be playing this role even while ostensibly in Pakistani custody.
The Americans do recognise a central role for the Pakistani military\u2019s intelligence service in the negotiation process: the US special envoy Richard Holbrooke recently told the BBC that \u201cPakistan\u2019s ISI can play a role in negotiations and I support that role. Pakistan has an influence in this area and has a legitimate security interest.\u201d The Pakistanis, for their part, have proven that they\u2019re determined to exercise that influence regardless of US preference. But the Karzai government is strongly opposed to giving the ISI any role in shaping Afghanistan\u2019s future.
The manoeuvring on all sides is hard to read, but the end game is clearly getting under way. And it may not have much to do with the military campaign and government-in-a-box in Marjah.<\/p>\n

By Tony Karon
\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Published in the UAE’s THE NATIONAL on March 6.<\/p>\n

Source: www.sunni-news.net<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The phrase \u201cphoney war\u201d was coined in the period between Germany\u2019s invasion of Poland in September 1939, and its invasion of France nine months later. It referred to the fact that while the western European allies had declared war on Hitler, they declined to do any serious fighting. 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