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The Trump White House’s War Within
SUSAN B. GLASSER | July 24, 2017
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Podcast:
SUSAN B. GLASSER | July 24, 2017
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Miller confirms in the interview that the State Department did in fact shut down the office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (known as SRAP)—without telling anyone, including the staff—when her contract as its acting leader ended at the end of June. She portrays the move to fold the office back into State’s regional South Asia bureau as part of a general downgrading of Afghanistan despite the more than $25 billion the United States spends annually there.
“I think it’s unquestionable that the current administration prefers not to prioritize Afghanistan,” she tells me. “It’s not been a subject of public discussion. The SRAP office was closed down. The secretary of state has not yet traveled to the region.”
Nor has the president, she notes—and there are no signs he plans to see the war up close anytime soon. “That’s also a judgment about where are the risks for America around the world, where are security interests, where are the threats that we most have to attend to,” she says.
“I think it’s unquestionable that the current administration prefers not to prioritize Afghanistan,” she tells me. “It’s not been a subject of public discussion. The SRAP office was closed down. The secretary of state has not yet traveled to the region.”
Nor has the president, she notes—and there are no signs he plans to see the war up close anytime soon. “That’s also a judgment about where are the risks for America around the world, where are security interests, where are the threats that we most have to attend to,” she says.
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After McMaster’s initial plan was not approved before the NATO summit in May, Trump decided to increase the power of Mattis and the Pentagon to decide on the numbers themselves, giving him “force management” authority to send up to 3,900 new troops to Afghanistan without seeking separate approval.
But the sources all noted that Mattis, despite apparently favoring a modest increase of around that many troops for Afghanistan as recommended by his commanders on the ground, has not yet authorized them.
The reason, it seems, is the president’s own hesitance about the best way forward.
But the sources all noted that Mattis, despite apparently favoring a modest increase of around that many troops for Afghanistan as recommended by his commanders on the ground, has not yet authorized them.
The reason, it seems, is the president’s own hesitance about the best way forward.
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“I don’t think there is any serious analyst of the situation in Afghanistan who believes that the war is winnable. It’s possible to prevent the defeat of the Afghan government and prevent military victory by the Taliban, but this is not a war that’s going to be won, certainly not in any time horizon that’s relevant to political decision-making in Washington,” Miller says.
Miller watched and participated in McMaster’s Afghan policy review up close for months and she believes that it has produced essentially a status-quo, stay-the-course proposal for a president unlikely to favor it. As Trump’s remarks the other day made clear, “he has not been persuaded,” Miller says.
And maybe that’s because McMaster and his allies simply don’t have persuasive arguments to offer. The U.S. has tried bombing the Taliban to smithereens; it’s tried negotiating; it’s tried rooting out corruption and boosting the government; it’s tried cracking down on the heroin trade that fuels the insurgents and replacing poppy plants with other crops; it’s tried sending tens of thousands more troops—only to end up with the same frustrating stalemate. “They don’t have any fancy new tricks up their sleeve,” she says. “There aren’t any new tools to be used to suddenly turn around the conflict in Afghanistan.”
Given that, it’s a hard case, Miller acknowledges, to do what McMaster has been trying: “to say to this new president … that your only option is that now you need to be the third president in a row to own this war, that’s a very politically difficult thing to do.”
Miller watched and participated in McMaster’s Afghan policy review up close for months and she believes that it has produced essentially a status-quo, stay-the-course proposal for a president unlikely to favor it. As Trump’s remarks the other day made clear, “he has not been persuaded,” Miller says.
And maybe that’s because McMaster and his allies simply don’t have persuasive arguments to offer. The U.S. has tried bombing the Taliban to smithereens; it’s tried negotiating; it’s tried rooting out corruption and boosting the government; it’s tried cracking down on the heroin trade that fuels the insurgents and replacing poppy plants with other crops; it’s tried sending tens of thousands more troops—only to end up with the same frustrating stalemate. “They don’t have any fancy new tricks up their sleeve,” she says. “There aren’t any new tools to be used to suddenly turn around the conflict in Afghanistan.”
Given that, it’s a hard case, Miller acknowledges, to do what McMaster has been trying: “to say to this new president … that your only option is that now you need to be the third president in a row to own this war, that’s a very politically difficult thing to do.”
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At her first meeting with Afghan hands from across the U.S. government, the session opened with a simple question. “The discussion started with, ‘What exactly are our vital national interests in Afghanistan?’” she recalls “And I thought to myself, as someone coming in from outside, from a think tank, ‘I’d assumed they knew that by 2013.’ I was shocked. I thought, ‘How can these people be sitting around the table asking what are our vital national interests in Afghanistan? It’s 2013.’”
Then Miller laughed.
“Here we are in 2017, “ she says, “and we’re asking that question again.”
Then Miller laughed.
“Here we are in 2017, “ she says, “and we’re asking that question again.”
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Podcast:
