Get Out

I am aware of the fact that US policy analysts monitor Afghan public opinion, but I wonder if US policy makers do so as well. Do the strategists in the Obama administration find comfort in the fact that the majority of the Afghan population supports the US military presence? The reason I ask this is that I think it's critical that President Obama be dispelled of the myth that just because most Afghans think it's a good idea then it must be right.

According to the CIA, literacy in Afghanistan is 28.1%. Afghanistan is a country of 32 million people. 23 million Afghans are functionally illiterate... which means they are unable to comprehend the fact that most Americans have little interest in spending their blood and treasure in nation-building. The Afghans are under the impression that Americans truly care about them, that the Americans want to build schools and hospitals in Afghanistan, and help create jobs for Afghans.

I have no doubt that most Americans would support such objectives if the United States had a massive budget surplus, and if there were 0% chance that a single American life would be lost. But the fact of the matter is that the US has an enormous budget deficit, and hundreds of US troops have died in Afghanistan. The debate over whether the Afghan mission ought to be about counter-terrorism or nation-building is almost over. Counter-terrorism won. Nation-building lost.

But the Afghans cannot understand this. And as a result, they will continue to shower love and affection upon the US troops, who would like to help them, but can't because that's not their mission. Their mission it to prevent the bad guys from coming back. So the Afghans are clearly misguided, and this is reflected in the polls that show overwhelming Afghan support for the US mission... only because the Afghans do not understand the nature of the mission.

It is unwise for the Obama administration to base its Afghan policy on these polls because these polls are not telling the truth. If the Afghans were to find out that the US is not interested in nation-building, I would imagine that support for the US presence would drop sharply. The Afghans would have a rude awakening that the US soldiers aren't there to build schools, but to shoot at insurgents.

It is also unwise for the Obama administration to base its Pakistan policy on the fact that polls show overwhelming Pakistani opposition to the Taliban, not to mention overwhelming Pakistani support for a Pakistani military operation against the Taliban in South Waziristan. Pakistan is a country of 172 million people, out of which 49.9% are literate. This means that 87 million Pakistanis are illiterate.

The Pakistani people apparently like the idea of their army going into South Waziristan to flush out the Taliban. But most Pakistanis have not read their own history. Hundreds and hundreds of years have gone by, and no army has ever been able to pacify South Waziristan. The Pakistani army may think it is all-powerful, and the Pakistani may believe this myth as well; but the fact of the matter is that, short of nuking it, you just cannot win in South Waziristan.

The crux of the matter is that I'm concerned that US policy makers are looking at the Afghan public opinion polls (as well as the Pakistani public opinion polls) and concluding that the US strategy in the Af-Pak region must be the correct one... or else why in the world would most Afghans and most Pakistanis agree with the dual US strategies of staying in Afghanistan and pushing the Pakistani army to fight in South Waziristan? Well, like I said, most of the people in the Af-Pak region can't read. So why is President Obama listening to them?

Think of a toothless guy who can't read, sitting in his trailer somewhere in Arkansas. If you were President Obama, would you care what this guy thinks about US foreign policy? I guess you would (to an extent) since he is a voter. But he is not a foreign policy scholar. He may indeed be the Henry KissingerHenry Kissinger or Zbigniew BrzezinskiZbigniew Brzezinski of his trailer park, but he is not someone whose advice you'd want to seek on Af-Pak policy.

Now, think of the Af-Pak region as one giant trailer park. 23 million illiterate Afghans and 87 million illiterate Pakistanis are the equivalent of 110 million toothless guys. I'm sure these 110 million people are among the most hospitable and compassionate in the world, but they are still illiterate. They are unaware of US domestic politics, unaware of America's economic problems, and unaware of the history of Af-Pak region. There is absolutely no reason for President Obama to be listening to what 110 million toothless guys think.