What the Afghan war is missing: A sense of desperation

Two wars, two surges of U.S. forces — and two vastly different outcomes. Why the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan?

The troop surge in Iraq, which began in 2007, succeeded for a simple reason: The various players (Sunnis, Shiites and Americans) had become desperate. And this collective desperation, even more so than troop levels and strategies, influenced the decisions and actions that ultimately turned the conflict around.

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The war in Afghanistan will not be decided solely by troop levels, either. For all the debate it elicited, President Obama’s announcement Wednesday that he will withdraw the 33,000 American surge forces there by September 2012 — including 10,000 by the end of this year — will not determine the outcome of the conflict. Neither will any one military doctrine or battlefield general. After more than five years as a civilian adviser to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is clear to me that there can be no single blueprint for our military actions abroad.

But it is also clear that the desperation that enabled the success of the surge in Iraq will not materialize in Afghanistan, and that is why a decisive shift in the conflict remains elusive and unlikely. The surge forces have hardly been wasted, but the absence of collective desperation means we must look beyond troop strength to have an impact in Afghanistan — while we still have a strong military, diplomatic and aid presence there.

In 2006 and 2007, before and during the surge in Iraq, Baghdad was a killing coliseum. Shiite militias and sectarian government forces systematically and deliberately eliminated Sunni communities. Civil war raged in the streets, and Iraqi government officials and citizens were routinely targeted and assassinated. Americans built concrete walls throughout the city to protect its residents from the insurgency, but also to make the primary method of intimidation — the dumping of dead bodies in public places, such as markets or on streets in front of homes — more difficult. The sight and stench of death filled the city. Casualties and suicides of U.S. troops mounted; memorial services for our fallen were unending. I was there as a political adviser to the U.S. military division responsible for Baghdad, and for those of us who lived through them, those were truly the darkest of days.

At this epicenter of war, various factors converged to tip the direction of the conflict. First, even before the first surge troops arrived, the mere expectation of their presence weighed heavily on the insurgents. The loud debate in Washington and President George W. Bush’s Hail Mary decision to send additional forces — notably, without a timeline — made the perception of force as important, if not more so, than its application.

Second, as the violence escalated, we placed new emphasis on analyzing and learning about those we were fighting, assessing their motivations and objectives. We mapped the fissures of numerous insurgent groups and exploited them through diplomatic pressure and relentless surgical strikes by U.S. Special Forces.