I am near the end of Ahmed Rashid’s Taliban and though I will write up a full review in the very near future, there are a few items I read this morning that I would like to discuss right now. The book was researched, written, and published in 2000, just months ahead of 9/11, but it is so prescient that it actually appears to have been produced after the towers fell and every American knew who the Taliban were and where the state of Afghanistan was (well, at least should have!). While Rashid’s important and informative book meticulously tells the story of the Taliban’s rise and examines the geopolitical aspects of the region and its actors, I want to focus on his assessment of US policy and strategy towards Afghanistan and the Taliban during this Post-Cold War, Pre-9/11 time period, or at least two crucial aspects of it.

Rashid is very critical of the lack of any coherent US policy and strategy toward the region and its extremely muddled and ever-changing view and stance towards a Taliban group with control of most, but not all, of the Afghan state. Rashid stated; ‘The USA dealt with issues as they came up, in a haphazard, piecemeal fashion, rather than applying a coherent, strategic vision to the region…US policy towards the Taliban… were driven by domestic American politics or attempted quick-fix solutions rather than a strategic policy.’ This assessment is doubt accurate as during the 1990s the US did not have an Afghan or Central Asian policy to speak of, and this has been pointed out again and again by many people. But hindsight is 20/20 and I can’t find myself getting to upset at US officials and the first Bush, Clinton, and early second Bush administrations for their lack of strategy on this faraway, seemingly insignificant region of the world. But this lack of attention and effective, coherent strategy cost the US and the world a tremendous amount of pain and a wound that is still far, far from healed. The opportunity given to the groups like the Taliban and Al Qaeda to grow and fester by the lack of world and US attention cannot be repeated. This is an especially important lesson to keep in mind during these trying economic and domestic-centric times as security threats do not disappear because we have other problems. So far the Obama administration seems to be aware of this pitfall and looks to be actively engaged in many of the world’s hot spots.

The second fascinating aspect Rashid discusses in terms of US policy toward the Taliban is how domestic issues and constraints affected our view and strategy toward the group and region. Though I don’t want to go into too many details, and Rashid for that matter doesn’t really either, Rashid claims that the US for most of the mid-90′s actually backed the Taliban’s rise and hold on power, as US sought regional stability above all else. Rashid then acknowledges that the US started to dismiss this ‘realist’ view of the Taliban for two disparate reasons: One based on security, one based liberal human rights.

The security issue is obviously the presence of Osama bin Ladin in Afghanistan and the Taliban’s protection of the wanted terrorist, who in 1998 organized the bombings of two US embassies in Africa. This issue obviously soured relations between the US and the Taliban, but Rashid seems to assert that another issue was more influential in disrupting US-Taliban relations, women’s rights. He writes, ‘The US rejection of the Taliban was largely because of the pressure exerted by the feminist movement at home.’ Rashid provides a modicum of evidence to back up this claim, including the lobbying of Hollywood activists, Hillary Clinton, Jay Leno’s wife, and other feminist groups on the Clinton administration in the late 90s. Rashid is correct in noting that Sec of State Madeleine Albright put her stamp on the US view of the Taliban by calling the group ‘despicable’ while on a trip to Pakistan. Rashid asserts that Clinton couldn’t ignore these liberal women votes, but this is mildly questionable as the issue only took momentum around 1998, when Clinton was already reelected. In any case, it is a significant example of how both domestic constituencies and liberal views, such as international human rights, can affect foreign policy, specifically America’s.

Extra Goodies:

1. Steven R. David tells you why you should worry about Pakistan’s nukes.

2. Selig S. Harrison breaks down Pakistan’s ethnic make-up and how they strongly affect its foreign and domestic policies, especially in regards to fighting native Taliban groups.

3. Pakistani blogger Fatima Bhutto asks the US to stop ‘spoiling‘ her country.

Excuse my absence of late as I was busy getting married. Unfortunately, I did not marry a great power (even South Africa, a regional power at best turned me down). While I was gone many GPP relevant happenings occurred, including a spirited debate on the EU’s place on the Great Power Rankings.

Thankfully that's not me or my wife.

Over the past week Pakistan seemed to fall apart and now seems to be putting itself back together again. The Taliban had made great strides not only cementing their control over regions in which the Paki state gave them autonomy over, but also pushed beyond. These disturbing and threatening moves caused quite a few people to voice serious concern about Pakistan’s short and long-term stability. However, in the past couple days the Pakistani military has launched major offensives to push back Taliban elements in the Swat Valley and attempt to bring back some semblance of state control. The leaders of Pakistan, Zardari, and Afghanistan, Karzai, also attended a trilateral conference with Obama in DC this weekend.

Speaking of Afghanistan and Obama, the US president has further put his stamp on the conflict by replacing (firing) Gen. David McKiernan, who was believed to be too old-school and militarily conventional, with Lt. Gen. Stanely McChrystal, a Special Ops expert. It appears Obama and his Sec of Defense Robert Gates did not believe McKiernan was the right man for their new strategy. Though I don’t know too much about McChrystal besides the fact that he led US Special Ops in Iraq, which caught Saddam and terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al Zarqawi, he comes with high praise. The Obama administration also fought back from claims that their new strategy and use of air strikes was putting too many Afghan civilians in danger, with the outcry from an incident in the town of Farah, where dozens of civilians may have been killed, taking center stage. Obama’s National Security Adviser Jim Jones asserted that the US would not give up the tactic: “We’re going to take a look at trying to make sure that we correct those things we can correct, but certainly to tie the hands of our commanders and say we’re not going to conduct air strikes, it would be imprudent.”

Lastly, Obama announced that he will give a major address in Egypt to the Islam world in a month. The location is no surprise and I am sorry I didn’t predict it here on this page. Egypt has been a major US ally in the region for going on 30 years and Condi Rice made a major speech there when she was Sec of State during the Bush Administration. I will soon right a larger piece about this upcoming speech and Egypt as a host, but right now I will just state that it will be a good opportunity to see how much Obama will push or emphasis human rights and the spread of democracy in the world. As Egypt is a place sorely lacking in both and criticism of Obama’s lack of democracy and human rights promotion is gathering. This speech will likely be a fine example of a great power leader walking the fine line between realism and idealism.

Gotta go, the wife is calling…

BFFs

President George W. Bush and President Jimmy Carter do not have much in common: one was a peanut farmer, the other nearly choked to death on a pretzel. That’s as close as they come, right? Wrong. Don’t we all just love rhetorical questions!

These much maligned presidents share more than just low approval ratings, as they both made very public efforts to promote Human Rights in some of the world’s most oppressive societies. For good and for bad, Carter and Bush put the advancement of democracy and human rights near the top of their foreign policy agendas. Both are well-known for their foreign affairs blunders, (Carter-Iran, Bush-Iraq, Obama stay out of the Middle East no matter what you do!) but they both effectively used their tremendous global influence as US President to shine a light on human oppression throughout the world.

This is not to say that these men had identical or even similar foreign policy records and methods, in ways is they seem light years apart, but their emphasis on universal human rights was a common thread. Each highlighted the efforts of political dissidents from around the globe and made many high profile speeches condemning human rights’s violators. Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl highlighted Bush’s work with dissidents from China, Burma, Iran, Cuba, Belarus, Egypt and Venezuela, most of which he brought to the White House’s Roosevelt Room. Interestingly, Bush worked to promote bloggers, writing about freedom and individual and religious rights in many dangerous lands, at times even watching as they posted. Diehl describes the important impact of Bush’s actions:

For the most part, however, the attention of the American president is precious to dissidents. It gains them enormous attention in their own countries and injects their liberal ideas into arenas from which they are usually excluded. Though some may be thrown in jail on their return from the White House, they also gain a de facto immunity from torture or assassination — otherwise a high risk in countries such as Belarus and Burma.

You won’t find Jimmy Carter and W compared on too many occasions and I think it unfortunate that the two don’t seem to communicate well with each other (Carter called Bush the ‘worst president ever’ and they did not seem close at all during the Living President meet up last week). Carter himself had words of advice to President-elect Obama about the importance of promoting American ideals of freedom and individual rights.

The moral footprint of the United States has always been vast. Our next president has an unprecedented opportunity to lead through example by inspiring and supporting those who would reach for freedom and by being tough and effective with those who would impede freedom’s march. All Americans must give him full support.

American Presidents come in all shapes and sizes (well, mostly white and male, mostly), but they all have a shared belief in the strength of the nations’ ideals, the promotion of freedom, individual rights, including free speech and religion, and the pursuit of happiness. I look forward to our new president carrying on this tradition.

(As Bush’s Presidency ends we will do a series of posts about his legacy and foreign policy record.)