Cognitive bias, bureaucratic frictions, and patron-client problems reinforced Obama’s stubborn insistence on the withdrawal timelines and his unwillingness to examine the assumptions underpinning transition. Obama had lost patience with the war.
The Obama administration told McChrystal that he was not going to get the resources and authorities for an outright win. They changed the military’s mission from “defeat” the Taliban to “degrade.”1 Even if the military campaign went well, though, without good governance and significant interdiction of Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan, the war would drag on. These problems were evident during Operation Moshtarak, which aimed to secure the Taliban stronghold of Marjah and Taliban-held areas in the northern parts of Nad-e Ali district in Helmand province. This operation was to be followed months later by Operation Hamkari, an offensive into Taliban-held areas of Kandahar.2 The two actions, if successful, would take parts of the southern Pashtun heartland away from the Taliban.
The initial push into Marjah by a combined force of US Marines and Afghan troops was successful in wresting control of the area. Still, the hoped for “government in a box” (district-level officials with economic resources at their disposal) that was to arrive and begin earning legitimacy was disappointing.3 Abdul Rahman Jan, the former Helmand chief of police, was a predatory actor who reportedly controlled much of the Noorzai tribe-dominated police in the province. He allegedly had let the Taliban take control of Marjah in 2007 in retaliation for his removal as the provincial chief of police. Retribution, residents feared, would be more likely than reconciliation and population security if he returned to the position.4 Marjah, supposed to be a signature offensive in a new counterinsurgency campaign, soon became, in McChrystal’s words, “a bleeding ulcer.”5 By the spring of 2010, McChrystal had come to believe that a negotiated outcome might hold the best prospects for durable success.6
The intellectual work toward that conclusion began in the fall of 2009. McChrystal asked retired British lieutenant general Sir Graeme Lamb, who engineered reconciliation efforts with Sunni tribes in Iraq, to come to Kabul and develop a reintegration program.7 Lamb and a small team of two US and two UK officers talked extensively with Masoom Stanekzai, a former communist official with a clean reputation, whom Karzai designated to lead the effort for the Afghan government, and a host of Afghan officials and elders from across the country.8 The team reviewed previous efforts, including some localized initiatives that had been effective and the failed Afghan government’s Peace Through Strength (PTS) program. Successful efforts tended to focus on dispute resolution and inclusive governance.9 PTS, however, was a scheme to bribe insurgents to defect and was marred by corruption.
Lamb and his team determined that good governance and dispute resolution were critical for a reintegration program. ISAF would need to support these efforts and develop ways to avoid targeting people engaged in substantive discussions. Local development projects that created jobs within affected communities could reinforce, but not substitute for, dispute resolution and improved local governance.10 Reintegration would probably hit a glass ceiling at local levels, they determined, due to the kleptocratic and predatory nature of the government and its resistance to reform. A corrupt governor or chief of police could undermine any initial success.
Furthermore, isolated efforts were vulnerable to Taliban disruption. Without significant support from the top down, the bottom-up approach would have only limited impact. Reconciliation, they determined, was critical for successful reintegration and vice versa.11
The team outlined the problem to McChrystal, who asked Lamb to study reconciliation further and advise him on the results.12 Lamb and the small group held meetings with diplomats, current and former Afghan officials, and former Taliban senior leaders. The group discerned that the Taliban had sustainable support within Afghanistan and sanctuary in Pakistan. The latter was not about to turn against the Taliban or throw them out of the country. The predatory corruption within the Afghan government and security forces was so profound that it undermined any realistic prospect of an Afghan government victory in the foreseeable future.13
Opportunities existed, too. The Taliban’s “Code of Conduct” and 2009 Eid messages had indicated that many Taliban public political positions were not dissimilar from public statements made by the Afghan government. There was a potential basis for dialogue, but the competition for power would be the most challenging issue. An effort at a brokered deal would be problematic and potentially destabilizing—like the peace deals that fell apart in 1992 and 1993 and led to the Afghan civil war. A peace process, Lamb’s team suggested, would need to be a coordinated effort, akin to the Northern Ireland process. Finally, the group raised the problem with the timeline. There was a significant risk that the Taliban could simply wait out the United States. The best time to begin talks, therefore, was before all the surge forces arrived: take advantage of the uncertainty in the Taliban’s mind and get the effort moving. If the Taliban withstood the surge and US forces began to drawdown, American leverage would decline substantially. The Taliban could play for time. I briefed this issue to a Deputies Committee small group meeting (a meeting of cabinet-level deputies) in late January 2010, after discussing it with Holbrooke’s staff.
To be successful, reintegration (as outlined by Lamb) and reconciliation efforts had to work hand-in-glove.14 Lower-level fighters leaving the ranks would put increasing pressure on the senior leadership. At the same time, high-level talks could induce local commanders to bide their time and perhaps participate in district-level conflict resolution. By the late spring of 2010, facilitated by their respective staffs, Holbrooke and McChrystal had agreed on this view.15 McChrystal believed the time was right to begin facilitating discussions between Karzai and Pakistan’s chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Kayani.16 He was keen to avoid stepping into Holbrooke’s lane but needed to help the effort gain traction.17 Such collaboration between the military command and SRAP ended when Obama accepted McChrystal’s resignation in June 2010, the day after the Rolling Stone article was published.18