What is "Winning"
In Iraq and Afghanistan?

What is "winning" as McCain and Bush mean it? They're talking of Iraq, of course.

In conventional military terms, the US was victorious a long time ago. Remember that heroic announcement on the deck of an aircraft carrier, Bush in flight gear? Mission Accomplished. That was the victory. Everything since has been occupation.

How do you win an occupation ? The US succeeded with the occupations in Germany and Japan, because, once beaten, the enemy didn't rise again and they weren't torn into sectarian factions. In fact both were unusually unified in national terms. So both occupied countries wanted to emulate the US in democracy, and wanted most of the troops out. In neither country was there what the Indians refer to as "fissiparous" tendencies, different groups that wanted to go their own way, or wanted to dominate each other. Such groups divide both Iraq and Afghanistan, and one either dominates, or everyone fights, interminably: Shiite, Sunni and Kurd in Iraq, and Baluchi, Tajik and Pashtun in Afghanistan.

What is "winning" in such a country? An invader would have to terrorize everyone else. So, is the US going to insert itself in both countries to dominate ALL the afore-mentioned groups? That would be "victory," but already there is another victor in Iraq: the Shiites, who control the government, such as it is, and the Iranians, who sponsored the Shiites. But what does this mean, and is it worth a trillion dollars of taxpayers' money to secure it? In Afghanistan, both the British and the Soviets tried to insert themselves and dominate: neither was able to do so, and the Soviet empire foundered because of its failure.

Is "winning" in sight? If victory is the US dominating all the groups in Iraq and in Afghanistan, then it is far out of reach. In Iraq, Shiites fight for power within the government; Sunnis fight for power in "the Awakening," and among the tribes, and will ultimately fight the Shiites; Kurds fight for power over Kurdistan, and Kirkuk. The US still has power, because of its raw military force on the ground, but not a single faction within Iraq wants the US to stay.

There may be Iraqis who do, who are pro-American, but it's likely that most are those who are too committed to the US occupation to countenance our withdrawal. That doesn't include lots of people; it does include most of the Iraqis with whom Americans come in contact. They would be what Communists and Maoists called "compradores."

A compradore is someone who profits from collaboration with the oppressor. I had a cook in India, who regretted Britain's withdrawal 22 years later. Why, because he was an expert in Anglo-Indian cooking--for Englishmen. It was bad times for him when they left.

But not bad times, ultimately, for either Britain or India: both were better off. The US would be better off, too, if it relinquished its hold not only on Iraq, but Afghanistan as well. In neither place can the US prevail. Afghanistan has been the sinkhole of at least three recent empires already: Russia, Britain and the Soviet Union.

The Taliban is not joined to al Qaeda at the hip. It is a Pashtun political force, which is why it is strongest in the Pashtun areas of the country. Back in 2001 it was willing to trade away bin Laden. We did not invade Afghanistan because the Taliban refused to cooperate over al Qaeda, but because they were proving obstinate over the oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea. The US threatened them with a "carpet of bombs" and when they didn't cave in, that's what they got. But, as unpleasant as Taliban ideology is, it is a product of Pashtun culture and is no more illegitimate than any other political faction, only more effective. Afghanistan is not the central war on Terror; there is no central war; the War On Terror is simply an excuse to ramp up Defense expenditures even more. Look at Europe: despite being targeted more often than the US, they are not driving themselves into bankruptcy to fight a "war on terror;" they are treating terrorists as a police issue, which it is.

I don't like the Taliban, its anti-female policies, its zealotry and its violence. But it does represent Pashtun values, and, with its skillful manipulation of Pashtuns it has become a popular force you can't obliterate with bombs; in fact, bombs probably strengthen it.

So, is even Obama saying we should bomb the Taliban? To "win" what? NATO forces are already in bad odor there, because of all the civilians they have killed "by accident." How do you know, especially from the air, that a group of people, some of them brandishing guns, as is Pashtun custom, is a wedding party and not an army of militants?

How can we be "winning" against a nationalist movement? Not with guns, but with ideas, and with bread. Afghanistan is one of the poorest nations in the world; we are one of the richest. Rather than bombing it, we should be aiding it to join modern society. That's the way we could be winning the "wars" in both countries: give them the means to make their own bread, and don't worry about whether they have links to al Qaeda. When they are well enough fed, they'll eliminate the extremists themselves--as the Sunni Awakening in Iraq has already demonstrated.

That's what winning would be: when Iraqis and Afghans get good governments and prosperous nations, but the US can't force that in either country; all it can do is: get out, stand back, and provide aid when it's asked for.

Referring back to the British-India experience: the British did have to get out of India. The immediate result was that millions of people lost their lives in the Partition. However, India today is thriving, Pakistan has its problems, but Britain staying would not have solved them, and Britain, economically, is doing much better than it would be if it were spending billions to hold onto a rebellious sub-continent (or its former African possessions, either).

The Roman Empire did not disentangle itself from empire, until it was forced to, at which point it was literally bankrupt: the fall of Rome was inevitable because Romans thought they could keep on "winning," when they couldn't even afford to rebuild their crumbling roads.

Which model will the US follow: Britain's or Rome's?