Waging Peace, Pages 49-50

William R. Polk Cautions Against Escalation in Afghanistan

WILLIAM R. POLK, the distinguished author, academic and former State Department official, spoke in Washington, DC Nov. 12 at an event co-sponsored by the Foundation for Middle East Peace and the Middle East Institute. Polk, who lives in France, was touring the U.S. in conjunction with the publication of his latest (and 13th) book, Understanding Iran. His earlier books include Backdrop to Tragedy: The Struggle for Palestine; The U.S. and the Arab World; and Violent Politics, a History of Insurgency.

Although his scheduled topic was “Israel, Palestine, the United States and the Middle East,” Polk clearly was motivated by the “even more urgent and difficult issue” of Afghanistan. “We don’t have much time,” he was heard explaining to one audience member. Nor is his a voice to be easily dismissed: in 1964, following a firefight he witnessed in Saigon, he gave a speech warning that the war in Vietnam was not winnable. His assessment of Afghanistan is the same.

Noting that Nobel Laureate Joseph Steiglitz and Harvard University lecturer Linda Bilmes had estimated that the total cost of the Iraq war will end up being $3 trillion, Polk estimated that Afghanistan will end up costing twice that. Moreover, he pointed out, given that Gen. David Petraeus’ counterinsurgency doctrine requires a ratio of 20 to 25 solders per thousand population, the total number of soldiers required is in fact between 600,000 and 1.3 million.

“No one says what can be done,” Polk lamented—and proceeded to do just that, laying out a plan for U.S. withdrawal based on the realities of the region.

He described the Pakistani army’s recent launching of a campaign against the Taliban as an “opportunity.” Despite its terrible cost, he explained, he believed the Pakistanis might be able to do “what neither the Russians nor we have been able to do—bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. This move would offer a wise American president an opening to begin the process of turning over the war to our ally Pakistan.”

With regard to Afghanistan itself, Polk drew on the country’s tradition of village assemblies, or jirgas, which he described as “the quintessential Afghan means of political action.” He went on to explain that “voting is not a part of the process. But when a consensus is reached, it is considered absolutely binding and further opposition is regarded as treason.”

Polk’s scenario is predicated on the U.S. announcing a withdrawal date from Afghanistan. In response, he predicted, jirgas would be held first on the village level, then expand to the regional level, and culminate in “a grand national assembly known as a loya jirga,” which the country’s constitution designates as the “ultimate authority.”

Washington has tried to substitute elections for Afghanistan’s indigenous political process, Polk noted. “It’s hard for Americans to understand that other people have their own way of doing things,” he observed sadly. Adamant that there should be little or no American influence on the process, Polk was clearly distressed by General Petraeus’ comment that “Money is my most important ammunition in this war.” As a result, he said, Afghanis “regard all the civic action programs as the ‘weapons’” of their occupiers. “But when the withdrawal pattern is set,” he explained, they will “have no reason to continue to do so.”

“Getting out of Afghanistan,” Polk concluded, could lead us to a reassertion of the principles and purposes that have made our country not just respected for its wealth and power, but beloved throughout the world. If we make a sincere effort to live up to the message of President Obama’s address in Cairo—that we are willing to live in a multicultural world—much of the fear and danger we perceive today will become a bad memory.”

—Janet McMahon