There is no Taliban

Massive military power is largely ineffectual in guerrilla warfare, and with the exception of US Army Special Forces and the CIA, our generals are not inclined to fight a guerrilla war. They may have studied British success in Malaysia, but what are lots of troops, armor, artillery, airborne, close air support and tons of equipment good for, unless you use it all to justify those all-important requests for more funding. General Petraeus can write another manual, and we can hope “Iraq surge” works in Afghanistan too, but the White House and the Pentagon have yet to learn that a guerrilla war is very hard to win with conventional strategy. Lessons of Vietnam have faded. Even with his huge army the NATO commander, General Stanley McChrystal, warns of “mission failure” unless even more forces are deployed. So why the sudden spate of victories? How did captures of “most wanted Taliban” happen? And what about those successful drone strikes?

The explanation of recent “victories” is simple. After Mullah Baradar and his henchmen set up shop in Karachi, the ISI decided the Quetta Shura was becoming more internal threat than external asset. Hence the ballyhooed arrest of Baradar, supposedly by CIA and ISI operatives. On top of that, Pakistani “Taliban” groups like the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were shooting up Pakistan. The TTP cares nothing about Afghanistan but wants control of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the northwest frontier. When the Pakistani army asserted itself in that mountainous region the TTP took revenge with attacks on settled areas. Finally, the ISI realized Pakistani “Taliban” and Afghan “Taliban” were joining forces. They knew the benign relationship with proxies that were to be used in Afghanistan, when the Americans leave, was ending. Hence intelligence was given to the Americans resulting in victorious captures and drone attacks.

The 2012 elections are fast approaching, so what can President Obama do about his unpopular Afghan war and General McChrystal, who declares his guerrilla warfare mantra to be “protecting the people.” The White House solution may be to use Pakistani intelligence, kill a few phony Taliban, and send the troops home, telling voters their mission was accomplished. A different president would be able to remember 2001 and would reactivate the Northern Alliance. They hate Mullah Omar, Hekmatyar, and Haqqani, and they defeated them once before in just 60 days—with help from the CIA and Special Forces.

But Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, would probably go along with the Obama White House plan. He goes along with anything they say anyway.