Winning the Battle, Losing the Faith

Winning the Battle, Losing the Faith – Nathaniel Fick and Vikram Singh, New York Times opinion

“The lion of the people will turn on you,” warned Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, a former Taliban foreign minister, as we sipped green tea at his home in Kabul a few weeks ago. He noted that while Americans had been shocked by a series of spectacular insurgent attacks over the summer, the United States-led coalition faced a far greater danger than the resurgent Taliban: growing despair among average Afghans that their government is fundamentally illegitimate.

Every aspect of sound counterinsurgency strategy revolves around bolstering the government’s legitimacy. When ordinary people lose their faith in their government, then they also lose faith in the foreigners who prop it up. The day that happens across Afghanistan is the day we lose the war.

With more than 230 military deaths since January, this year is on track to be the deadliest yet for the coalition in Afghanistan. July alone saw a brazen attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the deaths of nine Americans at a combat outpost in Nuristan and the killing of 10 French soldiers on the outskirts of Kabul. The response has been a growing consensus around sending two to four more combat brigades to Afghanistan – 8,000 to 16,000 troops.

Although larger and more populous than Iraq, Afghanistan has fewer than half the coalition forces, and critical programs to advise the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police operate at one-third to one-half of their authorized strength. As the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Michael Mullen, told Congress last year, “In Afghanistan we do what we can; in Iraq we do what we must.”

More at The New York Times.