The complexity of Afghanistan 

Source: ReutersBarack Obama delivers a speech

In Isaac Asimov's Foundation series the central character is a psychologist, one Hari Seldon. Somehow or other Seldon effects a breathtaking intellectual breakthrough, by reducing human psychology to mathematical equations.

Oh, if only this was true and not a fictional construct, because life might be easier for all of us. It's the maths, stupid, is a preferable response to some self-destructive moral lapse, than the alternative.

Unlike Seldon, I found my own psychology background only a burden; I soon discovered that disclosing it was sufficient invitation for hairdressers, acquaintances, and total strangers to unleash unscripted their deep psychic pain. Reducing life's woes to D = 2M-CA (or Depression = 2 much middle-class angst) became my Sheldonian formula, so a life in politics called instead.

Anyway, Seldon's psychological maths was so sophisticated that he calculated the next 1000 years of history to prevent an intolerable 30,000 years of chaos. The challenge for the rest of Asimov's characters was to ensure his golden trajectory was preserved.

So what has any of this to do with Afghanistan, you may rightly ask?

Well, such is the confounding complexity of Obama's decision on General McChrystal's troop level request that only Hari Seldon could work through the thicket to find a formula that might lead to even a minimally tolerable outcome. Deep Blue, the super-computer that has, from time to time, pitted it's circuitry against Gary Kasporov, the Russian chess genius, would likely malfunction if asked to calculate the costs and benefits of Obama's choices.

A Washington Post poll reported yesterday has only compounded Obama's woes. Only 45% now approve of Obama's handling of the situation in Afghanistan, down 10 points from September. The American public want Al Qaeda eradicated and the Taliban gone from Afghanistan. They sanction attacks in Pakistan to achieve this if necessary, but they are ambivalent about establishing a stable democracy in Kabul and they don't want to pay to facilitate said stability. Slightly more (49-47%) don't want Obama to send another 40,000 troops.

I've listened to some of America's best security brains, both inside and outside of government, debate the complexity of the Afghanistan situation. These people sincerely disagree with each other and it's possible, as a young friend observed to me, to hear two polar opposite analyses and find oneself agreeing with both of them with equal conviction.

I also saw an interview with Henry Kissinger. Gore Vidal recently told an interviewer that when he was in the Sistine Chapel in the 1980s he spied Kissinger looking up at a scene from Hell, causing Vidal to exclaim, "Look, he's apartment hunting." That may or may not be true, but Kissinger's realist brain has always been a big one, and when asked about Afghanistan he closed his eyes, and then unfurled a depressing monologue, filled with Armageddon-laced imagery, about the risk of geo-political failure in his familiar staccato German-clipped English.

The best I can do, therefore, is offer the following set of questions to underscore some of the complexity facing Obama.

For every question posed there are literally hundreds of second-order questions that flow from each one of them. I'm not even sure my questions are the right ones to begin with. Then consider that whatever answers end up constituting Obama's decision will then have to be translated into action - operationalised in other words - and we can be sure that the translation will not be flawless. So even if Obama's decisions are right, their execution may not be:

What is the vital national security threat that has drawn the US into the current situation in Afghanistan it finds itself in?
Are Al Qaeda and the Taliban synonymous when viewing the vital national security threat?
If yes, do Al Qaeda and the Taliban have the same goal?
If no, what strategies might peel off moderate Taliban? And to what end?
Does a counter-terrorism or counter-insurgency strategy best meet the single or twin threat(s) posed by Al Qaeda and the Taliban?
Or is that itself a false dichotomy, so that both strategies are required?
Do militant jihadists require specific pieces of dirt to plan attacks against America and its allies?
If yes, can Al Qaeda be defeated without greater US excursions into Pakistan?
If no, what does this mean for the entire rationale for the Afghanistan occupation?
Do the benefits of drone attacks outweigh the costs of civilian casualties and the resulting costs in the propaganda battle for the hearts and minds of Pakistanis and Afghans?
Can Afghanistan, with no history or tradition of ever coveting democracy, be transformed into one?
Can the endemic corruption at the heart of Karzai's government be eradicated? And if it can only be done so through American action what hope for a government of the
Afghan people, by the Afghan people, for the Afghan people?
Can a centralised government function in de-centralized and tribal Afghanistan?
Should a radical re-think of the configuration of the Afghan government and institutions be undertaken?
Is Pakistan at risk of being further alienated if troop levels are not increased?
Will NATO and the International Force assist of frustrate the US decision on troop numbers?
Is capturing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal the ultimate goal of radical jihadists?
What historical analogies can best inform decision-making in Afghanistan? Vietnam?
The Russian Occupation? Which elements of both?
Can American treasure and serious risks to life be continued in a climate of declining public support for the war?
What is the American public's threshold for a long-term commitment in Afghanistan?
Does the US have the resolve for a 30-year plus commitment to the region to ensure its stability?

As I say, my questions posed here are only a snapshot of the myriad other questions and cost-benefit analyses being undertaken by Obama and his inner circle. This deteriorating game of complex chess, which Obama came to in a position of great weakness, all inherited from his predecessor, leaves me with one last question: where is Hari Seldon when you most need him?