The Real Afghan Strategy

The Real Afghan Strategy – David Ignatius, Washington Post opinon.

Hikmatullah, a tall Pashtun farmer dressed in turban and white cloak, looks slightly bewildered as a US Army officer offers him tea and bread and questions him about what he wants from life. A crowd has gathered around them on the steps of the local bakery, young boys and old tribesmen gawking to see what the fuss is about. Hikmatullah says that he’s a happy man with five children and that what he wants most is security. From the quizzical look on the farmer’s face, perhaps he’s wondering: Can these pleasant, tea-drinking American soldiers really be the same people who are assaulting Taliban fighters in this region of eastern Afghanistan?

The answer is yes. Even as US forces show a gentler side with their new stress on people-friendly counterinsurgency, they continue to conduct devastating attacks on the enemy. It’s this mix of hard and soft that’s the essence of the US battle plan here, but this reality is not well understood back in America. The Washington debate about the Afghanistan war — pitting advocates of a broad counterinsurgency strategy against those who favor a narrower counterterrorism approach – has sometimes been misleading, at least in terms of what actually goes on here. The fact is that US forces are doing both missions every day and night – and indeed are becoming increasingly effective at each one…

More at The Washington Post.