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Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney addresses supports with his wife Ann and their sons behind him during a Romney for President Iowa Caucus night rally in Des Moines, Iowa, Tuesday. (Charlie Neibergall/AP)
Bomb Iran? Where Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum stand.
Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum emerged as the twin frontrunners after the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday, and this is likely to have interesting reverberations for Iran.
Why Iran? Because both former Gov. Romney and former Sen. Santorum are hard critics of the Obama administration’s handling of the country that Romney sees as America’s largest threat. Both men have said they would bomb Iran if that country developed nuclear weapons. Both believe that Obama’s efforts to negotiate with Iran sends a signal of weakness. And if one of these men emerges as the Republican candidate to go up against Obama, the Republican party will attempt to play to what it regards as its strength – security and foreign policy – and the rhetoric against Iran is only likely to grow sharper. (Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misstated that Iran had a declared nuclear weapons program.)
Obama’s approach to Iran, of course, is shaped by his campaign promise to abandon the unilateralism of the Bush administration, and to work closely with America’s allies to deal with mutual threats, using methods short of war. While the US took the lead in dealing with supposed threats in Iraq – launching the war promising to go after Saddam Hussein’s alleged “weapons of mass destruction” – Europe has taken the lead in dealing with Iran through “critical dialogue” and reminding Iran of its promises to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
RECOMMENDED Iran sanctions 101
Most of the Republican candidates portray this carrot-and-stick approach as weakness, and call for military options.
To be sure, Texas Rep. Ron Paul's strong third place showing in Iowa showed there is some diversity of opinion among GOP voters. The Congressman argues for rolling back US military commitments around the globe and has warned about the costs of starting new conflicts, particularly with Iran. But Paul's views on Iran have prompted strong rebukes from other Republican candidates who hope to also use the issue against Obama.
Romney, who officially won the Iowa caucuses with a mere eight votes (with 30,015 votes against Santorum’s 30,007), has long been critical of Obama’s policy toward Iran, but since launching his presidential campaign, he has become a veritable hawk.
During the Iowa campaign, Romney called Obama's efforts against Iran a failure.
"I want to make sure that the people of this nation understand that he failed us not only here at home, he's failed us in dealing with the greatest threat we face, which comes from Iran.”
During his first run for the presidency, in 2007, Romney managed to make the bombing of Iran sound like a somewhat middle-of-the road option.
“I don’t anticipate that the kind of strategy we would pursue would be a ground-intensive, change-the-regime, change-the-government type of effort. I think it’s more likely that other military actions would be in the nature of blockade or a bombardment or surgical strikes of one kind or another.”
More recently, in debates, he has called on Obama “to impose crippling economic sanctions on the Iranian regime, support the Iranian dissidents, and convey through actions – not just words – that the military option is very real and very credible.”
Santorum, by contrast, has been unequivocal: he would bomb Iran to stop the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons program.
In a lengthy interview on Meet the Press over the weekend, Santorum criticized Obama’s attempt at negotiating with the Iranians, and called for increased covert sabotage, bombings, and even arresting foreign scientists traveling to Iran to assist the Iranian nuclear weapons program, and “treating them like Al Qaeda.”
"I would be saying to the Iranians, you either open up those facilities, you begin to dismantle them and, and make them available to inspectors, or we will degrade those facilities through airstrikes and make it very public that we are doing that.
If the intention of all this muscle-flexing was to encourage Iran to step down from its nuclear program, it hasn’t worked. On Jan. 2, Tehran announced that it had produced the nation’s first nuclear fuel rod, a sign that its indigenous nuclear scientists had the technical capabilities to complete all the steps in the entire nuclear fuel cycle. Nuclear fuel rods are composed of pellets of enriched uranium, and are used in nuclear reactors, but some nuclear scientists fret that Iran may be using its peaceful nuclear energy program as a cover for a nuclear weapons program.
Tehran also announced that it had launched a new medium range missile, during a naval drill in the Persian Gulf. Iran says the new missile is designed to evade radar.
And if the US hoped that its close relations with some of Iran's regional neighbors might give it the kind of leverage to encourage better behavior from Iran, that door seems to be closed as well.
Sumit Ganguly, an expert on Indian foreign policy at the University of Indiana at Bloomington, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, says that India would likely remain neutral rather than succumb to US pressure and oppose Iran's development of nuclear weapons.
India will still avoid taking sides. The inherent caution that seems to characterise Indian foreign policy is most likely to prevail. The Indians will try to have it both ways. We will say peaceful resolution of this impending crisis is in the interest of all parties; we enjoin both the United States and Iran to avoid escalation which could contribute to violence. I can virtually write the press communiqué that will emanate from [India's foreign office in] South Block.
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A currency exchange bureau worker counts US dollars, as Iranian bank notes are seen at right in Tehran. (Vahid Salemi/AP)
Iran's currency crash a blow to Ahmadinejad
As Iran experiences new, harsh US and international economic sanctions over its nuclear program – a program considered by much of the country as a matter of national pride – a stable currency has become a national security priority.
“Even though it's not necessarily good for the economy, amidst sanctions a stable currency creates an illusion of strength,” says a veteran analyst in Tehran. “It reflects how nonvulnerable the Iranian economy is to sanctions.”
But in the past week Iran's currency – the rial – dropped almost 30 percent after President Obama approved new sanctions targeting Iran's Central Bank. The rial has since rebounded significantly from a low of 17,800 rials to the dollar on Monday. However the Central Bank has tried to introduce a cap on the market rate of 14,000 rials to the dollar, and the government announced that anyone caught selling rials at a higher rate would be arrested.
A sign of national strength
In a country such as Iran, with a rich history of empire and a powerful literary tradition, national pride has remained strong even in the wake of growing discontent with the country's Islamic regime and mounting global isolation. A stable currency in recent years, in the face of economic sanctions, has shored up that pride.
Since Iran's 1979 revolution, which led to the overthrow of the Pahlavi monarchy and the eventual establishment of an Islamic Republic, Tehran has used massive state subsidies as a means of fulfilling its revolutionary promise to redistribute wealth and achieve “economic justice” for all Iranians.
A stable, overvalued currency was considered a critical aspect of these programs. In the wake of the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980, a strong currency became a symbol to both the world and the Iranian population, which was beleaguered by war with Iraq throughout the 1980s – that an Islamic government could keep the country as strong and stable as its imperial predecessor.
But the overvaluing of Iran's currency has come at a considerable price. It has worsened the country's imbalance in foreign trade by encouraging imports and discouraging non-oil exports. It has also reduced state spending on economic development programs, subsidized large-scale consumption of imported goods – particularly among the country's wealthier urban classes – and poured more of Iran's natural and state resources into commerce instead of production.
Bad for Ahmadinejad
For President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration, which has embarked on a controversial state program to cut national subsidies while engaging in large-scale government spending, a strong currency creates a sense of domestic economic strength and stability on the Iranian street, which is extremely sensitive to Iran's damaged standing in the eyes of the international community.
The recent precipitous decline of Iran's currency, has therefore been a big blow for the Iranian president – and for Iranian pride.
“For Ahmadinejad, a strong rial is a part of this whole idea of, 'It's us against the world,'” the analyst in Tehran says. “This breaks that image.”
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Follow Roshanak Taghavi on Twitter at www.twitter.com/RoshanakT.
Former Taliban militants walk to hand over their weapons during a joining ceremony with the Afghan government in Herat, Afghanistan, Dec. 28, 2011. About 10 former Taliban militants from Herat province handed over their weapons as part of a peace-reconciliation program. (Hoshang Hashimi/AP/File)
Buckle up. Talking with the Taliban won't be easy.
It’s possible that after years of fits and starts, unprecedented talks may finally begin between the US government, the Afghan government, and the Taliban.
While the Taliban's new openness seems be a leap forward for the peace process and also bears the stamp of approval of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, negotiations are almost certain to be rocky. History shows they’re also likely to test the patience of the US.
SEE ALSO: Talking to the Taliban
On Tuesday, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid made the announcement:
We are at the moment, besides our powerful presence inside the country ready to establish a political office outside the country to come to an understanding with other nations and in this series, we have reached an initial agreement with Qatar and other related sides.
But at the end of his statement, posted on the Taliban’s website, Mr. Mujahid quashes hopes of negotiation:
Apart from this, the perturbing reports spread by some news agencies and Western officials about negotiations have no reality and are strongly rejected by Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Buckle up
Though this may come like a slap to many Americans who see a decade of armed presence in Afghanistan as time enough for the Karzai administration to get its act together, American officials surely must know by now that any discussion with the Taliban is not going to be easy.
The Taliban, after all, are primarily driven by nationalist sentiment, the desire to drive out foreign forces.
Years of drone attacks and Humvee patrols have hardened the attitudes of some Afghans, and the inefficacy of the Karzai government to extend its authority and governmental benefits beyond Kabul has left many other Afghans ambivalent, at best.
All this will make the Taliban a very prickly partner in discussions, prone to demands that both the US and Karzai governments may find unreasonable.
And if President Karzai has misgivings about talking with the Taliban, he’s not showing it.
Karzai set up a High Peace Council and assigned former President Burhanuddin Rabbani to lead talks with willing Taliban members. (Rabbani was assassinated last year by one of those Taliban, who exploded a bomb hidden in his turban as he entered the room to see him.)
Arsala Rahmani, spokesman for Karzai’s High Peace Council, also put a brave face on the situation, telling reporters in Kabul, "It is important for the Taliban to negotiate with the international community, especially with the US, and we welcome their decision to set up a political office. It is a gesture of good faith."
Should the US be negotiating with the Taliban at all?
But Fauzia Kofi, a liberal Afghan parliamentarian, told the Washington Post that talks with the Taliban could actually undermine much of the progress made during the past 10 years to create a democratic Afghanistan.
“History is repeating itself. This may result in bringing the Taliban back to power. None of our achievements have been systematic, and they can all collapse at any time.”
State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said the US government supports a political solution to the Afghan conflict and would play a supporting role in talks between the Karzai government and the Taliban.
“We have a policy here based on three principles: fight, talk, build,” she said according to the Afghan newspaper Khaama Press.
Setting up an office is the first step toward having talks, Ms. Nuland added.
“We’ve seen in many other conflict situations that you have to have a political address if you’re going to begin a political conversation. The Afghans themselves have said they are frustrated that the Taliban do not have a political address.”
Talks are risky, and failed talks can be fatal to a political career during a US political campaign.
The Vietnam example
Take the Vietnam war for example: In the midst of the war, the Johnson administration agreed to a cease-fire to allow peace talks with the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese government in Paris.
Those talks failed in the final hours before the 1968 US presidential elections, and Democrats accused the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon, of sabotage, sending emissaries to Paris to encourage them to hold out for a better deal with a Republican administration. The rumors were never proved, and in any case, after President Nixon took office in January 1969, no investigation was held. Still the it haunted him throughout his term.
The Paris Peace talks ended with a cease-fire agreement on Jan. 27, 1973 – and with Nobel Peace Prizes for Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho – but fighting continued until the final US evacuation from Saigon on April 29, 1975.
Among the 135,000 Vietnamese who fled to the US after the fall of Saigon were many former South Vietnamese political and military officials.
Perhaps liberal lawmakers like the Afghan parliamentarian, Fauzia Kofi, has reason to worry.
IN PICTURES: Afghanistan in winter
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Peace progress? Qatar gives Taliban an office address
In what could be one of the most significant steps toward a peace deal with the Taliban yet, the insurgent group announced on Tuesday that it had reached a preliminary agreement with the Qatari government to open a political office there.
Agreeing to let the Taliban have an overseas office is meant to be an act of good faith by the United States, NATO, and the Afghan government to show the Taliban that they’re serious about talks.
IN PICTURES: Afghanistan in winter
As the Monitor reported last week, Western and Afghan officials agreed to support such an office in Qatar. Talks have been a primary focus for the past year, but a physical address for the Taliban would mean an unprecedented, clear channel of communication that could facilitate substantive negotiations.
“We are now ready to have an office abroad for the talks with the internationals,” wrote the Taliban in an official statement released on Tuesday. “The stance of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan [the Taliban] from the beginning has been that there should be an end to this occupation and Afghans should be left to make an Islamic government in the country which should not be harmful for anyone.”
The Taliban also requested the release of several of its members currently detained at Guantanamo Bay and denied media reports indicating an imminent breakthrough on negotiations.
With much of the Taliban’s leadership believed to be in Pakistan, NATO and Afghan officials had hoped Afghanistan’s neighbor would assist with peace negotiations. But such hopes have been increasingly dashed by a deterioration of US-Pakistani relations, which culminated last month in Pakistan’s boycott of the much anticipated Bonn Conference.
Without the support of Pakistan, it was virtually impossible to access the Taliban's senior leadership. Thomas Ruttig, a senior analyst at Afghanistan Analysts Network writes:
“The problem with talking to the Taleban is not so much an issue of an unknown address but of access to them which is controlled, restricted and instrumentalised by Pakistan. It is a matter of political will, on Pakistan’s part, whether it allows talks to happen – or whether it tries to block talks. The address has been there, but someone has simply been standing in front of the doorbell.”
Though talks appear to be getting under way now that the Taliban have laid the groundwork for an office in a neutral location, violence in Afghanistan is unlikely to abate. In the interest of negotiating from a position of strength, both NATO and Taliban commanders will want to show battlefield gains and military strength.
One indication that fighting may actually increase comes in the form of new reports that the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban have forged an alliance that will bring members of the Pakistani group into Afghanistan to fight against NATO forces. Previously, the Pakistani Taliban avoided sending fighters to Afghanistan in the interest of fighting to topple its own government, reports McClatchy.
The alliance could indicate that the Afghan Taliban is weak after suffering considerable losses this past year or that it is seeking to inflict the maximum amount of damage possible on NATO to improve its position at the table.
“For God’s sake, forget all your differences and give us fighters to boost the battle against America in Afghanistan,” senior Al Qaeda commander Abu Yahya al-Libi told Pakistani fighters during a meeting to discuss the alliance, a militant who attended the meetings, according to the Associated Press.
IN PICTURES: Afghanistan in winter
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Employees work at a garment factory in Wuhu, Anhui province in China on Monday. China's big manufacturers narrowly avoided a contraction in December a survey showed on Sunday, but downward risks persist and suggest the world's second-largest economy will need fresh policy support to counter a slowdown in growth. (Reuters)
Good Reads: Predicting the end of history and the fall of China
By the time that giant glass ball descends over Times Square each year, most news organizations have already printed their assessments of the year’s great events. One magazine, Time, takes this time to name its Person of the Year, and often names a category of persons (“the Protester”) or even an inanimate object (“The Computer").
Articles that look back may feel subjective, but articles that predict the future tend to be absolute fluff, dodgy guesswork, or complete genius. Good arguments and persuasive evidence aren’t always a good guide for telling one type of article from the next. The best one can do is read selectively, keep a mental scorecard, and strut in front of friends when one of the articles turns out right.
Arab Spring? Yeah, I knew that would happen.
Predicting the future is risky business, but it’s also incredibly valuable. Fortune 500 companies pay big money for “economic intelligence” to help them plan for the next big thing. Governments assemble expensive spy networks to keep one step ahead of their enemies, and two steps ahead of their friends. Ordinary citizens can do all this too, by reading the news. And here are a few decent places to look.
Foreign Affairs. Yes, it looks incredibly stodgy, its pale blue cover untouched by designers since the cold war. But when it comes to far-out futurism, Foreign Affairs is the Rolling Stone of international relations. When Samuel Huntington wrote his “Clash of Civilizations” piece in the summer edition of Foreign Affairs in 1993, he predicted the broader outlines of September 11, 2001.
This month, Foreign Affairs has published a veritable Pirelli’s calendar of wonkish delight with its collection of “Eleven Foreign Policy Insights.” Check out Stewart M. Patrick’s piece from this list, called “How does the debt debate affect foreign aid?” Even though the article was originally published in July of 2011, it still reads like today's news, and it suggests a decline in US influence abroad.
While it’s easy to dismiss a piece because of its failure to predict events – as many do with Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 “End of History” piece in the National Interest – such articles still have value in looking at present events and drawing trajectories into the future.
In that spirit, one must read Gordon G. Chang’s piece in Foreign Policy, under the headline “The Coming Collapse of China: 2012 Edition.” To put it lightly, Mr. Chang’s viewpoint is not the dominant one, at a time when the Chinese economy continues to boom. But as the Monitor's own Peter Ford notes, there is growing unrest in the Chinese population. And Chang identifies three of China’s former strengths – its economic reforms, its massive and cheap labor force, and its emergence at a time of falling economic and political barriers – that have now turned into weaknesses.
… the global boom of the last two decades ended in 2008 when markets around the world crashed. The tumultuous events of that year brought to a close an unusually benign period during which countries attempted to integrate China into the international system and therefore tolerated its mercantilist policies. Now, however, every nation wants to export more and, in an era of protectionism or of managed trade, China will not be able to export its way to prosperity like it did during the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. China is more dependent on international commerce than almost any other nation, so trade friction -- or even declining global demand -- will hurt it more than others. The country, for instance, could be the biggest victim of the eurozone crisis.
As a side note, it turns out the American official who will be doing the most to guide US policy on China in the next year or so will be Vice President Joe Biden, a fact that will either reassure or terrify, depending on one’s opinion of Joe Biden.
There is a reason why journalists tend to pay so much attention to the political leaders of the day, and it is because it is political leaders – and their belief systems and prejudices – that do the most to affect the course of political events. Paul Pillar, the former deputy of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, writes a strong piece in Foreign Policy refuting the conventional wisdom that it was bad intelligence that led the US into the war into Iraq. No, says Mr. Pillar, it was the gut instincts of the Bush administration that led the US to war, for good or for ill.
On major foreign-policy decisions, however, whether going to war or broadly rethinking US strategy in the Arab world (as President Barack Obama is likely doing now), intelligence is not the decisive factor. The influences that really matter are the ones that leaders bring with them into office: their own strategic sense, the lessons they have drawn from history or personal experience, the imperatives of domestic politics, and their own neuroses. A memo or briefing emanating from some unfamiliar corner of the bureaucracy hardly stands a chance.
Journalistic predictions, like diplomatic cables, may be guesswork. But they’re a useful part of analyzing a changing world. Are you keeping score?
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Villagers in Wukan, China protest in a file photo from December. (AP/File)
2011 Reflections: China rising
It would be a brave man who would predict real political change anytime soon in China.
In the sensitive run-up to next fall's Communist Party Congress, and its once-in-a-decade leadership handover, the authorities will be especially vigilant in their battle to keep China "harmonious." That means stifling dissonant voices through censorship, arrests, and other familiar tools.
And yet there are unmistakable signs of ferment in Chinese society as it digests the phenomenal economic achievements of the past 30 years. Whether that ferment results in flammable gases is one of the key questions surrounding China's future.
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Many signs go unreported, such as the estimated 90,000 riots, protests, mass petitions, and other eruptions of unrest that happen every year, mostly in poor, rural areas. They are almost always localized affairs, targeted at unpopular municipal officials.
An unusually dramatic incident in December did attract national attention, however: The people of Wukan, in the southern province of Guangdong, angered by the threat that their farmland would be confiscated for construction, rose up and threw their local Communist Party rulers out of town.
Less violent symptoms of social change in China are more pervasive, though at first sight they have little to do with politics.
At the other end of the social spectrum from Wukan's villagers, many educated young people in the cities, for example, especially those in their 20s, are showing a much greater sense of independence and adventure than their parents ever allowed themselves.
They are quitting their jobs if they find them boring. They are traveling, they are shrugging off social traditions, and they are immersing themselves in foreign culture, whether that be Western music and fashion, South Korean soap operas, or Japanese anime.
Most important, they are putting personal fulfillment above any sense of duty to "serve the people," once the highest of Maoist values.
And these same young people – still a small minority, but an elite, opinion-shaping minority nonetheless – are losing their faith in the government, according to a study last year. The more a young person uses the Internet as a source of information, the more he or she thinks the government needs citizen supervision. And Internet penetration hit 500 million people this year, or a little over one-third of China's population.
It is anyone's guess how long it will be before social ferment bubbles up far enough to hit the leaden coffin lid of conformity imposed by China's political rulers. But as young consumers develop a hankering to become citizens, the pressure is building.
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Iraqis leave a Sunni mosque after prayers on Friday in Fallujah. (Hadi Mizban/AP)
2011 Reflections: Iraqi resilience amid war
In the darkest years of the Iraq war, in 2006-07, some 3,000 Iraqis were being killed every month. Every day the bodies of ordinary Iraqis appeared on the streets, tortured in a vicious sectarian war – or blown up by car bombs and suicide bombers.
Back then, kidnappings afflicted Iraqis and foreigners alike. Monitor reporter Jill Carroll was released after 83 terrifying days; many others fared much worse.
The question came too often to ignore, from my friends and family – and even surprised Iraqis – about why I continued reporting from Iraq.
My answer was always the same: Despite the magnitude of murder, there were also 5 million Iraqis in Baghdad alone who survived every day.
I wanted to tell their stories.
Those narratives could be as inspiring as they were often grim, as Iraq's social fabric frayed under the weight of violence. While the death toll has since dipped (to about 150 civilians per month), many risks remain: In the days after the final US troops flew out of Iraq on Dec. 17, the government of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued an arrest warrant for a key Sunni rival, which could prompt sectarian feuds to reignite.
But Iraqi resilience has remained strong, no matter what the challenge.
There was the Methboub family, whose widowed matriarch, Karima, kept her eight children alive and laughing, despite impossible poverty as the post-Saddam Hussein world exploded around them.
I found hope in the war diary of daughter Amal, who wrote by candlelight of her fear during the invasion – and of celebrating her 14th birthday as the bombs fell.
Years later, youngest son Mahmoud risked his life daily to sell Pepsi on the street, and daughter Fatima found love through the kitchen window, with a young man in the next apartment.
That joyful marriage would turn to abuse and misery, though Fatima has since regained her coquettish nature. Son Ali would be held and tortured in prison for 2-1/2 years, then released without charge. And Amal and her sister Hibba would finally make it to college – a bright coda. ( Continue… )
Soldiers patrol in eastern Afghanistan in late November. (Umit Bektas/Reuters)
2011 Reflections: What happened to the US debate on Afghanistan?
It's the middle of the night and I've just been awakened by an explosion. Standing in the dark of the Afghan guesthouse, I hear gunfire approaching.
I am the only Westerner in Baharak, a far-flung town. My curiosity turns to fear. I start looking for a hiding spot. Then, mercifully, the guns fall silent.
During my three years in the region, it was times like these that made me consider whether I wanted to keep reporting on Afghanistan, where the US involvement is entering its 11th year. Was it worth the risks if few Americans seemed to be paying attention to the conflict?
Since my move back to Boston in November, I'm still bothered by the neglect of the war because, unlike me, roughly 90,000 US troops over there cannot choose when to come home – that's up to us, the electorate. So far, I have encountered few real debates or deep curiosity here about this mostly forgotten war, just the occasional sentimentality for the troops.
IN PICTURES: Afghanistan in winter
"When did you get back?" the receptionist at the dentist asked me recently. "They didn't have you stick around to cover the end of the war?"
"I wasn't going to stay another three years – or more," I said.
Confused, she said: "I thought the war just ended."
"Oh, that's Iraq," I said.
"Where were you again?" she asked. Afghanistan does feel impossibly far away here. Even the scenes that play back in my mind look a bit like the moon.
I remember piling into a light armored vehicle, a military version of a duck boat. I was embedded with a group of US Marines in the far south.
We sped into the wake of the lead vehicle, which was kicking up plumes of "moon dust" – the powdery sand in that part of Helmand Province – that covered anyone leaning out of the truck's open bed. I didn't have aviator goggles, so I faced in, looked down, and noticed the guys were wearing velcro straps around their thighs.
If we hit an improvised explosive device (IED), they explained later, they could quickly tighten the straps to serve as a tourniquet.
When that's the nature of daily life there, a daily conversation ought to be taking place here about whether such sacrifices are still worth the costs. Instead, it's just not a priority – at least, not for most.
The Republican debates, when they touch on war, are fixated on Iran. The "Occupy" protests are not focused on the ongoing war, either, though returned veterans got some attention for putting themselves between police and fellow protesters.
Explain this to me
I ask people why it's such a forgotten issue. "People are more concerned about the economy," said a PhD student I met recently. Like most Americans, she wants the United States out of Afghanistan. I asked whether she'll protest. She shrugged. "We'll be out by 2014 anyway, right?"
I was in the Afghan capital, Kabul, when President Obama announced a surge of US forces into Afghanistan in 2010. He made a fateful decision to also mention a drawdown date. The reason, US officials in Kabul said, was to light a fire under Afghan President Hamid Karzai: Get serious about good governance because the US won't be there forever.
But the date seemed more important for those outside Kabul: the Taliban and the American people. The Taliban have shown little urgency in a peace process, perhaps calculating that they just need to wait until 2014, when the US says it will leave.
And in the US, the issue of ending the war has lost its potency because of a similar perception that it's winding down anyway.
And so Afghanistan has become something of a zombie war – a dead conflict that violently carries on. More than 400 US troops were killed there in 2011.
Rationale for keeping US troops
What originally animated this conflict was the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The Taliban regime failed to immediately turn over Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. The US overthrew the government but failed to get Mr. bin Laden until this past May. Even then, his death didn't end the war.
For journalists covering Afghanistan, it's at times challenging to figure out the latest US reasons to remain there. Here are the rationales given to me most often in the field – all of which deserve more debate:
1. Make peace with the Taliban. Diplomats, in particular, talk up the importance of this in order to end the vicious cycle of war in Afghanistan. But 2011 has brought one setback after another to the peace process, from a Taliban imposter fooling NATO into thinking he was a top Taliban peace negotiator to a suicide bomber who killed Mr. Karzai's peace envoy by detonating an explosive hidden in his turban.
At press time, however, a breakthrough seemed possible: Reuters reported that after 10 months of talks, the US and the Taliban may be close to taking initial confidence-building steps necessary for more serious political talks to start.
2. Rid nuclear-armed Pakistan of militants. Military strategists suggest the Afghan war is crucial for cleaning up Pakistan – a country with nuclear weapons and one that plays host to a who's who of militants. The US wants Pakistan to end militant havens or to allow the US to do it for them.
But it's worth a more serious cost-benefit analysis to determine whether the terrorists left in Pakistan remain a major threat to the US homeland.
3. Reserve US jobs. Occasionally, a cynic would point out that the war doubled as a massive jobs program. As an American contractor in Kabul once confided to me over breakfast: "I am having a good war."
Should the war run for three more Christmases? That question can be answered in various ways. But as someone who has just returned to the US, I simply want it to be asked here.
As I enjoy the peace of this holiday season, so removed from the conflict zone I recently experienced, I remind myself that we should spare a few thoughts for those who won't be home for the holidays – and consider why exactly that is.
IN PICTURES: Afghanistan in winter
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