The Losing War

A former spooky-type tells it like it is about Afghanistan, (for which you can substitute 'Iraq' at any point):

The U.S. military will not achieve anything resembling victory in Afghanistan, no matter how noble the objective and heroic the effort.

It's time to face this reality. We should start by developing a new covert action plan to be implemented by the Central Intelligence Agency. The strategy should focus on forging the kinds of relationships necessary to keep Afghanistan from re-emerging as al Qaeda's staging ground once our forces depart, and also on continuing the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

If there is any lasting lesson from the recent demise of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, it's that the large and visible occupying army he commanded in Afghanistan is simply the wrong force to wage the battles being fought there. The British and the Russians know this too well.

Were I not a long-time student of history -- particularly military history -- our ongoing blunders in Afghanistan and Iraq would surprise me. I'm not in the least surprised. It's an unfortunate (and necessary) downfall of civilian control of the military: amateurs make the strategic decisions. The key to making the system work lies in realizing the error and correcting it, something our "esteemed leaders" in Washington have yet to do.

There's more than one way to build an empire. We don't have the cultural background and innate social cruelty for doing it via the Roman method, so we'd best stop trying and go back to what's worked well for us in the past: the Byzantine way.

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As usual, the article is "protected," so just cut and paste the following into a Google search to go in the back door and read the whole thing: The CIA Solution for Afghanistan

(Dear WSJ: webscription models are so 2002. Get with it, folks.)