.Analysis: America decides to fight and win in Afghanistan
When British and American soldiers were called to Kabul's Ministry of Culture last week, those who had served time in Iraq were greeted with a grimly familiar scene.
Charred and mangled bodies littered the building, the victims of a suicide bomber who had penetrated security at one of the most heavily-guarded sites in the capital. A Taliban spokesman later gloatingly confirmed that the attack was aimed at the ministry's Western advisers, part of a new strategy of terror against Kabul's foreign aid community that saw British aid worker Gayle Williams shot dead two weeks ago.
It was a stark reminder of just how vicious the Taliban campaign in Afghanistan has become – and of the scale of the task facing the American general who has been ordered to claw back victory from the jaws of what is starting to look like defeat.
General David Petraeus, the 'warrior-scholar' credited with working a miracle in Iraq, is taking command of the war that America forgot. On Friday he started as head of US Central Command with orders to send more troops to Afghanistan, think up new tactics, and work out a strategy that, after years of muddle, bloodshed and drift under Nato's confused command, will take the battle to the Taliban and win the war.
His old enemy appear to be planning their own surge; US intelligence believes that Arab jihadists have been arriving in the Pakistan borderlands as Iraq cools and Afghanistan hots up.
American commanders have barely bothered to disguise their growing frustration with their European and Nato allies whose war has been uncoordinated and inadequately resourced. Major military forces from Germany and France have avoided sending their troops to Taliban-dominated areas, while Holland and Canada, whose soldiers have seen ferocious fighting, will soon restrict their troops to training Afghans. It is clear from their actions that many of America's allies increasingly believe that the war is unwinnable and not a place to put any more troops in harm's way.
American commanders have looked at all the options in a thorough review and come to a different conclusion; they have decided that now is the time to fight.
"What will eventually win this war is American military power," a senior Nato source in Kabul told the Sunday Telegraph. "There is no question of America withdrawing from Afghanistan. They are simply not prepared to let the people responsible for September 11th move back in.
"If the Europeans decided to go they wouldn't that much missed, frankly. Some of them are in the way."
Although the American military colossus is preparing to shoulder aside its European allies and escalate the war, the plan will almost certainly be very different from the successful strategy in Iraq, where a short-term but massive surge of troops proved instrumental in achieving a degree of peace.
General Petraeus has repeatedly stressed that the Afghan challenge is different. Indeed, some of his army rivals consider him more lucky than brilliant – he took command just as Sunnis had become sickened by the bloody excesses of al Qaeda in Iraq, and they were in a mood to strike deals with Americans.
In Afghanistan, although the Taliban is not popular, its support is growing. And with roughly only a third of the 150,000 troops he had at his disposal in Iraq, Gen Petraeus will simply not have enough manpower to flood the villages and mountains along the Pakistan border.
Instead, the Sunday Telegraph understands that American commanders will soon be presenting the new president in Washington, whoever he is, with plans to fight an intense five-year war against the guerrillas, a war that commanders think looks winnable unlike the morass troops are in now.
Britain will remain a key partner. But battles in Helmand will increasingly be fought by American combat troops and American commanders will call the shots. A serious effort will also be made, at last, to get a grip on the crippling problems of Kabul's corrupt and ineffective government.
"President Karzai will be told bluntly that it is time for the Kabul government to change its ways.," the NATO source added. "They will have to get rid of corrupt governors and police chiefs, introduce responsibility and generally improve their act and look like a government worth fighting for."
President Karzai, who rarely leaves the gloomy confines of Kabul's Arg Palace, is now said even by his own supporters to be exhausted. He still plans to stand in next year's presidential elections, much to the dismay of most Westerners in Kabul and plenty of Afghans too.
The rot is so deep within his government that it is not clear how America or anyone else can force him to change, though, however much they may wish to.
The US is so fed up with corrupt and inefficient Afghan police and army forces that it is already considering arming village militias – a plan that sounds very similar to the Sunni Awakening programme that successfully energised Iraqis against al Qaeda.
Afghans fear that it could instead make petty warlords more powerful, and point to the fact that historically, every Western dalliance with warlords in Afghanistan has been a disaster: the Taliban itself was an indirect by-product of US funding of the mujahedeen movements against the occupying Soviets in the 1980s.
The other radical new element of America's strategy will be talking to the Taliban. But this will be less an attempt to come up with a grand deal, and more an effort to split and demoralise the enemy – and it risks backfiring if anti-Taliban Afghans think a deal will be a figleaf for Britain and America to pull out and leave them to their fate.
America's military power will have to be the instrument of persuasion for America's Afghan supporters who are waiting to see if America really means to win.
Nick Day, CEO of Diligence Global Business Intelligence and a former Special Boat Service officer and British Intelligence agent who now monitors Islamist groups, believes that increased US military power could win the war.
He said: "All the drone aircraft and helicopters they can bring in will make a huge difference, and the Americans have learned a lot about counter-insurgency in Iraq. Their soldiers are professional and committed.
"And once the violence level has been dampened down, then it will be time to look for an exit."
What is not clear, however, is exactly how many more troops General Petraeus will have.
The US military is exhausted after years of combat in Iraq, from where the general plans to gradually withdraw his men.
US commanders have asked for 20,000 more soldiers to reinforce the 64,000 Western troops currently in Afghanistan, but so far the Pentagon has approved only one army brigade – about 4,000 men. More will arrive next summer, but they will certainly be less than the 30,000 extra troops that were sent to Iraq for last year's troop surge.
If they prove to be not enough, and if the jihadists continue to flock in, American troops could find themselves struggling in an increasingly bloody quagmire instead of getting to grips with the Taliban.
The Soviets, after all, sent 140,000 men to fight Afghan guerrillas at the height of their war and still lost.
As fresh American troops drive between their heavily-fortified bases next year, past ambush points and along roads where the ground can erupt at any moment in a minestrike, they will often see the carcasses of Soviet tanks. And they may reflect that every other army that has tried to win Afghanistan by sending in more troops has left the same way; in humiliation and defeat.
Telegraph
Charred and mangled bodies littered the building, the victims of a suicide bomber who had penetrated security at one of the most heavily-guarded sites in the capital. A Taliban spokesman later gloatingly confirmed that the attack was aimed at the ministry's Western advisers, part of a new strategy of terror against Kabul's foreign aid community that saw British aid worker Gayle Williams shot dead two weeks ago.
It was a stark reminder of just how vicious the Taliban campaign in Afghanistan has become – and of the scale of the task facing the American general who has been ordered to claw back victory from the jaws of what is starting to look like defeat.
General David Petraeus, the 'warrior-scholar' credited with working a miracle in Iraq, is taking command of the war that America forgot. On Friday he started as head of US Central Command with orders to send more troops to Afghanistan, think up new tactics, and work out a strategy that, after years of muddle, bloodshed and drift under Nato's confused command, will take the battle to the Taliban and win the war.
His old enemy appear to be planning their own surge; US intelligence believes that Arab jihadists have been arriving in the Pakistan borderlands as Iraq cools and Afghanistan hots up.
American commanders have barely bothered to disguise their growing frustration with their European and Nato allies whose war has been uncoordinated and inadequately resourced. Major military forces from Germany and France have avoided sending their troops to Taliban-dominated areas, while Holland and Canada, whose soldiers have seen ferocious fighting, will soon restrict their troops to training Afghans. It is clear from their actions that many of America's allies increasingly believe that the war is unwinnable and not a place to put any more troops in harm's way.
American commanders have looked at all the options in a thorough review and come to a different conclusion; they have decided that now is the time to fight.
"What will eventually win this war is American military power," a senior Nato source in Kabul told the Sunday Telegraph. "There is no question of America withdrawing from Afghanistan. They are simply not prepared to let the people responsible for September 11th move back in.
"If the Europeans decided to go they wouldn't that much missed, frankly. Some of them are in the way."
Although the American military colossus is preparing to shoulder aside its European allies and escalate the war, the plan will almost certainly be very different from the successful strategy in Iraq, where a short-term but massive surge of troops proved instrumental in achieving a degree of peace.
General Petraeus has repeatedly stressed that the Afghan challenge is different. Indeed, some of his army rivals consider him more lucky than brilliant – he took command just as Sunnis had become sickened by the bloody excesses of al Qaeda in Iraq, and they were in a mood to strike deals with Americans.
In Afghanistan, although the Taliban is not popular, its support is growing. And with roughly only a third of the 150,000 troops he had at his disposal in Iraq, Gen Petraeus will simply not have enough manpower to flood the villages and mountains along the Pakistan border.
Instead, the Sunday Telegraph understands that American commanders will soon be presenting the new president in Washington, whoever he is, with plans to fight an intense five-year war against the guerrillas, a war that commanders think looks winnable unlike the morass troops are in now.
Britain will remain a key partner. But battles in Helmand will increasingly be fought by American combat troops and American commanders will call the shots. A serious effort will also be made, at last, to get a grip on the crippling problems of Kabul's corrupt and ineffective government.
"President Karzai will be told bluntly that it is time for the Kabul government to change its ways.," the NATO source added. "They will have to get rid of corrupt governors and police chiefs, introduce responsibility and generally improve their act and look like a government worth fighting for."
President Karzai, who rarely leaves the gloomy confines of Kabul's Arg Palace, is now said even by his own supporters to be exhausted. He still plans to stand in next year's presidential elections, much to the dismay of most Westerners in Kabul and plenty of Afghans too.
The rot is so deep within his government that it is not clear how America or anyone else can force him to change, though, however much they may wish to.
The US is so fed up with corrupt and inefficient Afghan police and army forces that it is already considering arming village militias – a plan that sounds very similar to the Sunni Awakening programme that successfully energised Iraqis against al Qaeda.
Afghans fear that it could instead make petty warlords more powerful, and point to the fact that historically, every Western dalliance with warlords in Afghanistan has been a disaster: the Taliban itself was an indirect by-product of US funding of the mujahedeen movements against the occupying Soviets in the 1980s.
The other radical new element of America's strategy will be talking to the Taliban. But this will be less an attempt to come up with a grand deal, and more an effort to split and demoralise the enemy – and it risks backfiring if anti-Taliban Afghans think a deal will be a figleaf for Britain and America to pull out and leave them to their fate.
America's military power will have to be the instrument of persuasion for America's Afghan supporters who are waiting to see if America really means to win.
Nick Day, CEO of Diligence Global Business Intelligence and a former Special Boat Service officer and British Intelligence agent who now monitors Islamist groups, believes that increased US military power could win the war.
He said: "All the drone aircraft and helicopters they can bring in will make a huge difference, and the Americans have learned a lot about counter-insurgency in Iraq. Their soldiers are professional and committed.
"And once the violence level has been dampened down, then it will be time to look for an exit."
What is not clear, however, is exactly how many more troops General Petraeus will have.
The US military is exhausted after years of combat in Iraq, from where the general plans to gradually withdraw his men.
US commanders have asked for 20,000 more soldiers to reinforce the 64,000 Western troops currently in Afghanistan, but so far the Pentagon has approved only one army brigade – about 4,000 men. More will arrive next summer, but they will certainly be less than the 30,000 extra troops that were sent to Iraq for last year's troop surge.
If they prove to be not enough, and if the jihadists continue to flock in, American troops could find themselves struggling in an increasingly bloody quagmire instead of getting to grips with the Taliban.
The Soviets, after all, sent 140,000 men to fight Afghan guerrillas at the height of their war and still lost.
As fresh American troops drive between their heavily-fortified bases next year, past ambush points and along roads where the ground can erupt at any moment in a minestrike, they will often see the carcasses of Soviet tanks. And they may reflect that every other army that has tried to win Afghanistan by sending in more troops has left the same way; in humiliation and defeat.
Telegraph
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