Steve Coll:

With its hospitals, universities, and social-service wings, Lashkar is akin to Hezbollah or Hamas; it is a three-dimensional political and social movement with an armed wing, not merely a terrorist or paramilitary outfit.

Clearly, Lashkar knows what it must do to protect the Pakistan government from being exposed in the violent operations that Lashkar runs in Kashmir and elsewhere.

In the long run, this work is a threat to the secular character of Pakistan, but it is certainly preferable to revolutionary violence and upheaval right now. On the other hand, there is little doubt that the Army and I.S.I. continue to use Jamat’s legitimate front as a vehicle for prosecution of a long-running “double game” with the United States, in which Pakistan pledges fealty to American counterterrorism goals while at the same time facilitating guerrilla violence against India.

From the archive:

“I cannot lie to you,” Namdar said, smiling at last. “The army comes in, and they fire at empty buildings. It is a drama — it is just to entertain.”

Entertain whom? I asked.

“America,” he said.

Lashkar-e-Taiba: Think Tank

Rory Stewart:

President-elect Obama’s emphasis on Afghanistan and his desire to send more troops and money there is misguided. Overestimating its importance distracts us from higher priorities, creates an unhealthy dynamic with the government of Afghanistan and endangers the one thing it needs — the stability that might come from a patient, limited, long-term relationship with the international community.

Mr. Obama believes that sending even more troops and money will now bring “victory” in Afghanistan. Some of this may be politically driven: a pretense of future benefits appears better than admitting a loss; and because lives are involved, no one wants to write off sunk costs.

Nevertheless, these increases are not just wasteful, they are counterproductive.

We will not be able to eliminate the Taliban from the rural areas of Afghanistan’s south, so we will have to work with Afghans to contain the insurgency instead. All this is unpleasant for Western politicians who dream of solving the fundamental problems and getting out. They will soon be tempted to give up.

Recently:

"You Westerners have your watches," the leader observed. "But we Taliban have time."

The ‘Good War’ Isn’t Worth Fighting

Rory Stewart, the author of the best seller The Places In Between about Afghanistan and soon-to-be director of the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard’s Kennedy School, rejects both the troop increases and the idea that the success of counterinsurgency tactics in Iraq can be duplicated in Afghanistan. Stewart, a former British infantry officer, would limit US involvement to carefully targeted economic development aid, and dismisses a counterinsurgency strategy as unrealistic and overly ambitious. He recommends that the US pursue a containment strategy and a narrowly counterterrorist military campaign.

Obama's Afghanistan Surprise

Andrew Klavan goes to Afghanistan.

I attacked Hollywood for wallowing in outmoded European ideologies and for resurrecting imagery left over from movies about Vietnam.

Then, after a while, I started to ask myself, “Hey, wait a minute. How do you know what a movie about the War on Terror should look like? What would your movie look like, big mouth? What kind of story would you tell?”

Five Days at the End of the World

David Kilcullen talks about Afghanistan.

If we do this [Presidential transition] the “normal” way, it will be too late.

We are being both out-fought and out-governed for four basic reasons:

(1) We have failed to secure the Afghan people.
(2) We have failed to deal with the Pakistani sanctuary ...
(3) The Afghan government has not delivered legitimate, good governance ...
(4) Neither we nor the Afghans are organized, staffed, or resourced to do [what needs to be done].

It makes no sense to pull troops out of Iraq just so we can go and re-commit them somewhere else.

Pakistan is extremely important; indeed, Pakistan (rather than either Afghanistan or Iraq) is the central front of world terrorism. But nation-building in Pakistan is a twenty to thirty year project, minimum, if indeed it proves possible at all.

Local tribal leaders have told me that ninety per cent of the people we call Taliban could be reconcilable under some circumstances, but that many are terrified of what the Quetta shura and other extremists associated with the old Taliban regime might do to them if they tried to reconcile.

"It's Still Winnable, But Only Just."

A new book by Gilles Kepel.

From the Publishers Weekly review:

Kepel offers an erudite critique of the narratives of both Bush and Bin Laden which considered force or violence to be a prerequisite for change in the Middle East. The book surveys the propagation of the war on terror that eventually led to the fiasco in Iraq, but unlike many critiques of the Iraq War, this study focuses on the internecine fighting between various national and sectarian Muslim groups, providing rich historical and cultural context for the internal regional politics that often have derailed U.S. policy. His analysis shifts to Europe, where he examines how different national policies of integration and multiculturalism in France and England have resulted in dramatically different experiences of terrorism. Kepel offers alternatives to the American war on terror that he believes will help to transcend terror and martyrdom and to ensure the decisive marginalization of jihadist radicalism. His prescriptions are as insightful and thoughtful as his critiques, making this a valuable read for those interested in the Middle East and current affairs generally.

From a recent Q&A with the author:

Q. Is militant jihadism on the wane?

A. The jihadists are not well. Their main problem is an inability to mobilize the masses. There are small groups of people who follow the jihadis, but the militants are totally unable to appeal to a broad constituency. After the attacks of September 11, which brought a lot of joy to a lot of people in the Muslim world, there were some copycat bombings, but this has not led to anything in terms of mobilization. The jihadis have not been able to launch a major attack since the 7/7 bombings [of 2005], in London. The masses don't think the Islamists can deliver anything. And when you look at jihadist literature on the Internet, as I do, you see a tremendous amount of internal fighting that is getting worse and worse.

Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: The Future of the Middle East

Michael Yon:

Our enemies are winning. The enemies know it. We know it.

Afghanistan is drowning in a frothing quicksand.

Obama says he is serious about Afghanistan.

It will be like solving a human Rubik’s Cube during a firefight while the media screams every time you make a wrong move — or what is perceived as a wrong move — and there is a clock ticking and at some unknown point the Cube self-destructs.

Recently:

"You Westerners have your watches," the leader observed. "But we Taliban have time."

Afghan Quicksand Awaits

The political climate felt none too stable in 1986, something Bernstein had just experienced firsthand during an international tour with two of his beloved orchestras—the Israel Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic. Ronald Reagan was in his second term. Pan Am Flight 73 had been hijacked in Pakistan that September, after which a series of deadly terrorist bombings had taken place in Paris. Terrorist threats plagued the Israel Philharmonic’s tour, and Bernstein was “heavily guarded,” as he put it, yielding a situation where “the more protection one has, the more danger is implied.” Thus he turned his speech into a rumination on the metastatic nature of fear.

Have you seen The Band's Visit?

Something Called Terrorism - By Leonard Bernstein

Robert Kagan, in Foreign Affairs:

Those who today proclaim that the United States is in decline often imagine a past in which the world danced to an Olympian America's tune. That is an illusion. Nostalgia swells for the wondrous U.S.-dominated era after World War II. But although the United States succeeded in Europe then, it suffered disastrous setbacks elsewhere. The "loss" of China to communism, the North Korean invasion of South Korea, the Soviet Union's testing of a hydrogen bomb, the stirrings of postcolonial nationalism in Indochina -- each was a strategic calamity of immense scope, and was understood to be such at the time. Each critically shaped the remainder of the twentieth century, and not for the better. And each proved utterly beyond the United States' power to control or even to manage successfully. Not a single event in the last decade can match any one of those events in terms of its enormity as a setback to the United States' position in the world.

The September 12 Paradigm

Lee Sandlin:

I once saw a vintage newspaper from the Civil War announcing the result of the Battle of Gettysburg. "TREMENDOUS VICTORY IN PENNSYLVANIA" was the headline. In smaller type was this subhead: "Reverent Gratitude of the People." Reverent gratitude -- there's a sentiment we don't see much of these days.

From the archive:

The Civil War dead are still among us—long after their beautifully dressed widows have passed away—and the problem is how to get them buried. The acceptable thing to say now, as it was then, is that the soldiers, and their sacrifice, are what remain to inspire us. But it’s the corpses that haunt us, not the soldiers, as they haunted us then, and no amount of black crêpe can cover them over.

The Iraq War introduced entirely new kinds of cruelty to the world, so it’s strange how many of my memories are of kindness.

Somebody said to me the other day that the entitlement we need to get rid of is our sense of entitlement.

Losing the War