15 - 21 November 2001
Issue No.560
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 15 - 21 November 2001 Issue No.560 |
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Don Quixote tries again
Ahmed Abdel-Halim* counts the windmills
On the 1 October episode of BBC World's Hard Talk, which examined the causes for resentment towards America, host Tim Sebastian asked Gary Hart why US officials had not heeded the report the former senator had published in mid-2000, which predicted a crisis very similar to the one that struck the US on 11 September. Heading a team of US political and military figures, Hart, also a former US presidential candidate, had proposed the report (on which I worked, along with several Egyptian colleagues, when Hart came to Cairo to collect information pertaining to the Middle East) to assess US foreign policy directions for the beginning of the 21st century.
Sebastian reminded Hart that he had mentioned a general trend of resentment towards the US. The former senator confirmed this, adding that, when he was working on the report, this was abundantly evident in Egypt. The US has paid billions of dollars to Egypt, he added, so Americans can't say they haven't done their part. "Perhaps," he mused, "those millions were misspent."
Apparently, Hart believes that large sums of economic aid should blind us to other issues. He failed to mention that anti-US sentiments have nothing to do with levels of aid and everything to do with US policy in the Middle East -- specifically, Washington's unmitigated support for Israel, even when it most damages Arab interests. Nor did the former senator acknowledge that a more equitable foreign policy, in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world, is the best safeguard of US interests abroad and peace and security at home.
Following the 11 September strikes, Washington fell prey to a bout of hysteria and made several dangerous decisions, rushing to a conclusion as to the identity of the person responsible for the attacks. In its haste to point the finger at Arabs and Muslims, it did not ask who stood to gain from the attacks or who had the capacity to stage such a well-coordinated and precise operation. It did not consider that certain regional and international issues (such as the final-status situation in the Middle East, upon which Israel seeks to impose its own conditions, or the US's stance on antiballistic missiles) may have motivated other parties to launch the appalling attacks on the US. Nor did it glance at extremists inside the US, which hold that American government and society have so departed from the values of the founding fathers that only violence will restore them to their original purity. Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrator of the Oklahoma City bombing, and such groups as Aryan Nation come to mind in this regard, as do other highly organised underground groups with various motives, such as the Mafia and a number of narcotics rings.
Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qa'ida and the Taliban have come into the cross-hairs of the US military machine, despite the lack of incontrovertible evidence of their guilt. Within days of the 11 September attack, the US launched a massive political and military campaign. It initiated the strategic buildup for an assault and then began to deploy forces in the vicinity of the target area while hastily drawing up a battle plan. At the same time, it began gathering intelligence frantically and, on the diplomatic front, stirring up international support for the offensive, particularly from Arab and Islamic nations, and most especially from Pakistan, adjacent to the target country.
Once it was satisfied that its efforts had been successful, the US launched the offensive against Afghanistan. But did it choose the right target? Had it gathered sufficient intelligence and assessed its political and military strengths accurately? Have operations gone according to plan? More importantly, has the US learned from the experiences of other powers that attempted to invade Afghanistan -- the British in the 19th century and the Soviet Union from 1979 to 1989 -- not to mention its own experience in Vietnam and, more recently, in Somalia?
Military operations in Afghanistan have passed through several qualitatively different phases. Initially, the strategy was to unleash a powerful barrage of air and missile strikes against Taliban military targets, which, essentially, amounted to a handful of airports and anti-aircraft defence systems. The second phase concentrated on military support targets, most of which were located in residential areas and comprised various warehouses and weapons depots. The offensive devastated civilian targets, such as residential communities and hospitals, which the US military command believed sheltered key Taliban figures or Taliban forces. Now, as the strikes drag on, anything could be a target.
An aerial offensive, however, cannot achieve the political and military objectives of the assault. Only tactically supported ground forces can do that. A ground offensive can take two forms: either a massive invasion that destroys everything in its path, or relatively small, precise missions undertaken by Special Forces that land in the theatre of operations, and withdraw immediately after. The US command has eliminated the first option, and, although officials have spoken frequently of the second alternative, to date there has been only one Special Forces operation, which merits closer inspection.
There are several ways to introduce Special Forces into Afghanistan. One is overland, across the Pakistani border or the border with Uzbekistan. Pakistani officials so far have rejected that option, while (until recently) Taliban control of Mazar-i Sharif ruled out the latter. The second possibility is to stage an airborne operation, using helicopters to drop forces over specific areas and to pick them up once they have completed their missions. A third alternative is to airdrop paratroopers, who then meet at pre-designated points, carry out their operations, then gather elsewhere to be lifted out of the theatre of operations.
The one Special Forces operation under discussion here used a combination of the second and third alternatives. Two teams were dropped into Afghanistan: one was to head to an airfield outside Kandahar, while the other made for a residential neighbourhood thought to harbour Al- Qa'ida leaders. During the extensive media coverage of this operation, the Taliban announced that it had inflicted heavy losses on these ground forces. Whether or not we believe this claim, what is significant is that the US command does not seem to have mounted further operations of this sort. Moreover, according to some sources, the US commando units mistakenly killed the Afghan spies who had supplied them with intelligence and were waiting on the ground to direct them to their targets.
Following that operation, the US resumed its intensive air and missile assault over Afghanistan, without discriminating between military and civilian targets, or even international relief agencies. At present, there is no tangible indication that the use of ground forces of any size is under consideration, notwithstanding US declarations to the contrary.
Simultaneously, Northern Alliance forces have found it very difficult to make any inroads on the ground, until their recent spate of takeovers of strategic points that could serve as staging points for further military operations. Control of Mazar-i Sherif can also secure a corridor for US forces coming from Uzbekistan.
As the conflict continues, however, there have been signs of backsliding in the military coalition, intelligence cooperation and the political support of several countries. In addition, Ramadan is approaching, as is the brutal Afghan winter. Nevertheless, not only is the US sustaining its operations, it is also contemplating expanding operations to include countries that -- it claims -- harbour terrorist elements ostensibly belonging to the Qa'ida network. Nothing could jeopardise US global interests more.
Former and current establishment figures in the US (former US envoy to the UN Richard Holbrooke springs to mind) have been reluctant to acknowledge that American foreign policy is the cause of anti-US sentiments worldwide. Instead, they have reiterated the customary drivel about democracy and human rights. Will the current administration prove equally intransigent, or will it heed the lessons of the past and open its eyes to the true causes of its tragic isolation?
* The writer is an expert on military strategy and deputy director of the National Centre for Middle East Studies.
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