President Obama recently announced his decision to increase the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan by at least 30,000 troops in pursuit of the same goals that he had originally articulated in March: “To disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.”
He identified the objectives that the United States will need to achieve in support of this mission. “We must deny al Qaeda a safe haven. We must reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government. And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan’s security forces and government, so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan’s future.”
The president has repeatedly failed to explain adequately why reversing the Taliban’s momentum is a necessary prerequisite for the ultimate defeat of al Qaeda. Both in his West Point address and in Sunday’s “60 Minutes” interview he emphasized the relationship between the two groups resulting from their co-location along the Durand Line separating Afghanistan from Pakistan. But that geographical proximity is only part of the tie between the groups that requires the United States to act in Afghanistan while Pakistan operates along its side of the border against separate but related extremists.
There is, in fact, a clear and cogent answer to the question of why we must defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan in order to defeat al Qaeda. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made the case succinctly in his recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Defeating al Qaeda and enhancing Afghan security are mutually reinforcing missions. They cannot be untethered from one another, as much as we might wish that to be the case.” The Taliban and al Qaeda are linked, not only by the events leading up to 9/11 — mentioned by Obama in his speech — but by their vision of history, their ideology, and the human networks that sustain them.
He added, “While al Qaeda is under great pressure now and dependent on the Taliban and other extremist groups, for sustainment, the success of the Taliban would vastly strengthen al Qaeda’s message, to the Muslim world, that violent extremists are on the winning side of history. Put simply, the Taliban and al Qaeda have become symbiotic, each benefiting from the success and mythology of the other. Al Qaeda leaders have stated this explicitly and repeatedly.”
This argument is not simply a renewed version of some untested domino theory. Gates testified that “Taliban success in retaking and holding parts of Afghanistan, against the combined forces of multiple modern armies — the current direction of events — has dramatically strengthened the extremist mythology and popular perceptions of who is winning and who is losing.”
The Taliban’s success in the 1990s made that group and its leader a beacon and model for Islamists around the world. As Gates noted, “The lesson of the Taliban’s revival for al Qaeda is that time and will are on their side, that with a Western defeat, they could regain their strength and achieve a major strategic victory, as long as their senior leadership lives and can continue to inspire and attract followers and funding.” He concluded, “Rolling back the Taliban is now necessary, even if not sufficient, to the ultimate defeat of al Qaeda.”
That is why Obama decided to send additional forces to Afghanistan, and why he gave them a set of clear objectives, as Gates explained: “Reversing Taliban momentum through sustained military action by the U.S., our allies and the Afghans; denying the Taliban access to and control of key population and production centers and lines of communication; disrupting the Taliban outside secured areas and preventing al Qaeda from regaining sanctuary in Afghanistan; degrading the Taliban to levels manageable by the Afghan national security forces; increasing the size and capability of the Afghan national security forces and employing other local forces selectively to begin transitioning security responsibility to the Afghan government within 18 months; and finally, selectively building the capacity of Afghan government, particularly in key ministries.”
The overall objective of this strategy is to defeat al Qaeda and create conditions that will prevent it from re-establishing safe havens in South Asia. The strategy Obama has announced for Afghanistan is an essential first step toward that goal.
Kimberly Kagan is the president of the Institute for the Study of War and the author of “The Surge: A Military History” (Encounter Books, 2009).
