• Print
• E-Mail
• Feedback

10/27/2009

SPIEGEL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai last week finally agreed to a run-off election. How did the United States government manage to achieve that?

Riedel: President Obama owes Senator John Kerry a great deal for the efforts he made in the last several days to convince Karzai that he had to accept a second round.

SPIEGEL: With the argument that the United States will not send additional troops otherwise?

Riedel: That was precisely the threat that Senator Kerry delivered very forcefully. After the total fiasco of the first round with more than a million phony votes for Karzai, there was no one in the US Congress, at least among Democrats, who would have supported sending more troops to Afghanistan under these circumstances.

SPIEGEL: And without additional troops the Afghan government would be doomed to failure?

Riedel: Without more resources, meaning more troops and other things, we are not going to reverse the momentum that the Taliban have developed in this war. If we let the situation continue as it is, we will find ourselves in a quagmire. We need shock therapy in Afghanistan right now. First we need to fix the Afghan election process. Then a counterinsurgency campaign -- also with political components -- must be waged. We must try to reach out and break off the moderate elements of the Taliban.

SPIEGEL: Shouldn't the American public be shocked by the number of troops and funding necessary to make a difference in Afghanistan? Shortly after his inauguration, President Obama approved sending 17,000 additional troops. Now the head of allied military operations in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, is requesting an additional 40,000 US troops. The public as well as the government are deeply divided over the course of action necessary.

Riedel: Well, it is very clear that there is tremendous war weariness, and people, quite rightly, are asking why we are not making any progress. For eight years we tried to achieve success in Afghanistan on the cheap and we have ended up with a predictable result, which is the mess we are in today. Now we have to put the resources in, and give General McChrystal two years. Then we should make an evaluation on whether it works.

SPIEGEL: How important is Obama's decision on sending even more troops?

Riedel: We are in a decisive stage. The war is deteriorating so quickly that a year from now we could find ourselves in an irretrievable situation where the only question is, how do we retreat with minimal losses?

SPIEGEL: For weeks Obama has been contemplating a troop increase. Which White House faction will win: General McChrystal or Vice President Joe Biden, who wants to limit the US engagement in Afghanistan?

Riedel: The president is well aware that the country is divided. But with his leadership abilities, he is still in a position to persuade Americans that the war in Afghanistan is a necessary war.

SPIEGEL: But what if he decides to listen to Biden?

Riedel: The vice president's argument has been all along that we should try a purely counterterrorism approach and rely principally on the CIA drones and Special Forces. The problem is: That is essentially what George Bush did for seven years -- and he failed.

SPIEGEL: But Biden does not stand alone with his position.

Riedel: He has been the odd man out, but now he is getting more and more support, particularly in Congress, as people increasingly wonder where the president is going to take this.

SPIEGEL: But the core question is this: Does the West engage in nation building Afghanistan or does it limit itself to chasing out Al-Qaida?

Riedel: The second approach will not work. The so-called "nation-building" has wrongly gotten a bad name and in Afghanistan it is not doomed to failure. The Taliban are a minority, and every poll shows that the majority of Afghans still want us to defend their country against them. But we do not have the luxury of waiting. Pretty soon we may have a true national insurgency instead of one that is confined to the south and east.

SPIEGEL: But Biden still wants to primarily focus on Pakistan.

Riedel: President Obama's strategy is based on the understanding that these are two countries, but one war, and that stability is needed in both. It would also be a major mistake, just when Pakistan is starting to do the right thing fighting the extremists in the Swat Valley and Waziristan, to send a signal that we are giving up the fight next door in Afghanistan.

SPIEGEL: As the former coordinator, you played a role in revising the US strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. As such, you can't be very pleased with the current discussions.

Riedel: There is a healthy and reasonable debate going on about how many resources we should put into this. The president faces a difficult challenge in persuading his fellow Democrats, but there is still sufficient political capital behind him. Obama fired McChrystal's predecessor and personally chose the general, who has argued that the right approach on the counterinsurgency is to focus on protecting the Afghan people.

SPIEGEL: General McChrystal is trying to apply a lot of the lessons he learned during the war in Iraq to Afghanistan. Has Obama learned the lesson from his predecessor George W. Bush that, when it comes to troop levels, one should listen to the military rather than the politicians back home?

Riedel: This is the test. Obama's national security team has to make sure they do not let domestic American politics drive the war in Afghanistan. Obama has held back his decision, because of the Afghan elections. I suspect the president is going to give General McChrystal at least a significant part of what he wants.